


The Light Within

by JadedNightingale2308



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Eventual Tenth Doctor, F/M, Rewriting Episodes, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, slowburn romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23960419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadedNightingale2308/pseuds/JadedNightingale2308
Summary: When Parker Sloane is accidentally dragged along on an adventure with Rose and the Doctor, she finds the one thing she's been longing for: an escape from the life she feels trapped in. But a life of traveling with the Doctor is full of more dangers and deaths than she'd expected and, even with the Doctor by her side, she can't outrun the darkness chasing her.
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Original Character(s), Ninth Doctor/Original Female Character(s), Tenth Doctor/Original Character(s), Tenth Doctor/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	1. An Unexpected Rose

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! For those of you who are also reading my other Doctor Who fic, "This is Not the End of Me", just know that this story will not be as dark or as intense (for the most part) as that story. I won't say too much, other than that I appreciate any kudos or comments that you leave! I love to know what you think of the story! I have a link to my Trello on my profile where I have a list of all the stories I am currently working on and which one I am currently working on at any given time as well as where in the writing process each story is. Check it out if you want to stay up to date on my writing process!

Chapter 1: An Unexpected Rose

* * *

_~"Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the ones you didn't mean to take."~_

Angela N. Blount, _Once Upon an Ever After_

* * *

Wednesdays were the worst day of the week. Riley Parker Sloane, who almost always went by Parker, couldn't help but grumble as she attempted to turn the key in the door to her flat. Sure, she hated Mondays, too, but Wednesdays were worse. Wednesdays made her feel like the week was over, but there were still two more awful days to go until the weekend. In her twenty years of life, she'd had more terrible Wednesdays than Mondays.

She should have known the day would be awful when she had woken up that morning. It was bad enough that she had endured more than the normal amount of surly hotel guests at work, but then some oaf had slammed into her while walking down the street and knocked her to the ground.

Parker was about to kick the door in annoyance at the key's refusal to turn in the knob when it finally gave up fighting her and twisted to the left, a satisfying click sounding as it did. The deadbolt gave way much easier than the knob, and then the door was open for her to trudge into the flat. Closing the door, she leaned back against it and took a moment to evaluate the mental checklist in her head.

She was supposed to be on her way to get Sophie from work right now. That's where she'd been heading when the irritated man on the phone had plowed into her and then had the audacity to look like she'd offended him by being in the same airspace as him. Now her knee was scraped up and bleeding. _Though_ , she thought briefly _, maybe that's what I get for wearing my ripped jeans_. She'd changed out of her hotel uniform so she wouldn't have to walk around the city in the stiff uniform dress pants, then had to make the executive decision to stop home first to patch up the wound before going to get Sophie. Not that Sophie _needed_ an escort. Aunt Claire didn't like Sophie to travel alone, like she was some sort of invalid. Sophie may be sick, but she wasn't crippled.

Her cell phone began to ring just as she locked the knob behind her, and she knew who it would be before even glancing down at the caller ID. "Hey, lady," she answered the phone before walking over to deposit her messenger bag on the coffee table in the living room.

"Hello, Parker," Aunt Claire's voice spoke from the other end. From the use of her niece's middle name, Parker could tell her aunt was having a decent day, even if she did sound tired. It was only recently, within the last year or so, that she had convinced her aunt to call her by the name she preferred. Even though her first name was Riley, she had made the decision at the age of thirteen to go by her middle name, Parker. For years, the very traditional Aunt Claire had refused to call her by anything but her first name. It wasn't until the girls started living with her full time that she'd finally accepted that her younger niece wasn't going to continue responding to her first name. But sometimes, if Aunt Claire was mentally exhausted after a long day, the name Riley still slipped through. "I'm just getting ready to leave school. Are you on your way to get Sophie yet?" Aunt Claire was a secondary teacher, the equivalent of high school in the United States where Parker and her sister were from, and taught English. Like Parker, Aunt Claire always seemed to feel the most exhausted on Wednesdays.

Parker couldn't help but roll her eyes as she made her way to the bathroom down the hallway. There was no "How are you?" or "How was work?", but she wasn't surprised. Her issues didn't matter much anymore. In the bathroom, she pulled open the linen closet door and began rummaging through the first aid supplies. "Actually, Aunt Claire, I'm back at the flat. I _was_ on my way to get Sophie when some jerk plowed right over me on the sidewalk. I skinned my knee so I stopped home first to clean it up. I'll leave to go get her in a few minutes."

"Oh, sweetie, are you okay?" Through the phone, she could hear her aunt's car door open and close. "Is it bad? Do you need to go see Dr. Graves?"

How long had it been since Aunt Claire could think of anything but doctors? If she neglected to ask how her niece was, it wasn't because she didn't care, but because her mind was constantly running at a million miles an hour. "Relax, I'm five by five. No stitches required, so you can start breathing again. It's just a scratch, not that I can feel it." Retrieving the Neosporin and band-aids, she lifted her foot to prop it against the side of the toilet. "But it is bleeding pretty heavily for something so shallow so I figured I should clean it before I go get Sophie."

"Don't worry about Sophie," Aunt Claire said. Parker paused in the evaluation of her knee. Had the hole in her pant leg gotten bigger when she fell, or was she imagining things? "I'll go get her. You should rest your knee."

"Are you sure? It'll only take me a moment to clean myself up." Typical Aunt Claire, making a mountain out of a scraped knee. Parker would be perfectly fine if she walked to get Sophie, but she wouldn't complain that her aunt was offering.

"Yes, I'm sure. Sophie said she was feeling pretty run down today when I talked to her at lunch, so maybe it's better that she doesn't walk." Parker frowned at that, but didn't say anything. It was early for her sister to be feeling exhausted already. "I'm already on my way to the bank. Make sure you clean your knee well; you don't need an infection. And stay off of it! I'll see you soon."

"Okay, okay, see you soon." After hanging up with her aunt, Parker returned her attention to her knee. She was almost positive that the hole in the knee of her jeans had indeed gotten bigger, which meant that she would have to be careful when they went in the wash. Otherwise, she was relieved to see that the cut was pretty standard. The skin was slightly swollen and angry, tinted red from the blood still oozing from the scrape, but it looked like only the top couple layers of skin were harmed. It should be fine by the end of the day.

A moment later, she had fished out the Hydrogen Peroxide from underneath the sink and had dabbed some on the small injury with a cotton pad. Aunt Claire only bought the round, lint-free ones ever since Sophie's doctor had warned them about the dangers of cotton ball fuzz. A dab of Neosporin and a band-aid, one of the large rectangular ones to make sure the whole knee was covered, and she was good as new.

She cleaned up the first aid supplies and left the bathroom, feeling as if even Aunt Claire would be happy with the state of the injury. Her bedroom was next to the bathroom and she wandered that way, needing a new pair of jeans. After debating the options in her dresser drawer, Parker opted for a pair of black jeans, sans holes this time, and carried the bloody blue jeans into the laundry room after lacing up her canvas shoes. The blue jeans, blood spatter dried into the ripped knee, went into the washing machine. After starting the small load, she paused. She wasn't used to having free time like this when she was by herself, and she was bored.

 _I'm only twenty. Life shouldn't be this boring_. _Not yet_. She should be out having adventures, experiencing life, doing something crazy, just like her father had when he was this age. But ever since Sophie had been diagnosed two years ago, it was like life had been put on hold. Every day was a breath held in anticipation, waiting for the other shoe to drop. All the plans she'd once had for herself, all the dreams, had to be stashed. It wasn't like she had complained, and never would. She couldn't. Sophie was her sister, and she would have gladly gone to hell and back if it meant saving her even an ounce of the pain she'd been through in the last two years.

But… there were days, more than a few lately, where Parker wondered what her life might be like now if Sophie had never gotten sick and she had been able to follow her dreams. Parker longed for the freedom to focus on her writing. Her goal was to go to college, or university as they called it in England, to study and get a degree in creative writing. It had all been planned; she had even begun filling out applications when life had been derailed. Again. They had lost too much in their lives already for her to leave Sophie behind. When they'd gotten the news about Sophie's skin cancer, Parker made the decision to put that degree, that dream, on hold. She didn't regret the decision, not one bit. Lately, though, she'd just been feeling a little like she was in a funk that she couldn't get out of.

Lost in her thoughts, she made her way from the small laundry alcove in the back of the flat to the living room. There was about an hour to kill until Aunt Claire and Sophie would get home. But what to do? She could read her new book, _Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief_ , or reread _Harry Potter_ from the beginning in preparation for the sixth book, _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_ , coming out later in the year. No, there was too much on her mind to focus on reading right now, as much as she might want to. The PlayStation 2 had been calling her name for the last few days to go and finish _Xenosaga_ , but even that didn't pique her interest, a sure sign that she was truly in a rut.

Parker's green eyes landed on her messenger bag, still lying discarded on the coffee table. She crossed the room and pulled out a journal, a well-loved turquoise book where she kept all of her poetry and rambles. A moment passed in staring, and it went back into her bag. She wasn't in the mood to write, either.

Maybe she was hungry, and her case of the blahs would dissipate with some food. A few steps placed her in the kitchen, debating what to eat. She opened one white cabinet, quickly scanning over the different items there. Cereal? No, all they had left was gross Frosted Mini-Wheats. Pasta? Nope, nothing that heavy. Soup? Still no, it wasn't cold enough to warrant hot liquids yet. In the next cabinet, she noticed an unopened box of baking chocolate on the third shelf down, and an idea popped into her head.

Nothing cheered up the Sloane family like brownies did. Between Sophie and her, Parker was certain they could all use some cheering up today.

~X~

By the time the sounds of the front door being opened reached her ears, the brownies were just about ready to come out of the oven. A happy Sophie sigh quickly followed. "I know that smell. Parker, if you weren't my sister, I'd marry you."

Parker peeked her head out of the kitchen doorway, wrinkling her nose at the comment. "I'm going to disown you as my sister if you make any more comments like that." She couldn't help but laugh at the false offense in Sophie's expression, even as she wanted to frown. Sophie looked exhausted, even more so than usual. "They're almost done. You want something to drink while they cool?"

Sophie grinned as she slowly peeled off her lightweight coat, draping it over the doorknob of the coat closet. "I sure could use a drink."

"I know what that means," Aunt Claire's voice could be heard from down the hall. She must have gone straight past the kitchen they had come in; Parker hadn't even seen her. "And I agree, but we all know you can't have any."

Sophie scowled as she moved into the kitchen. She all but collapsed into a chair at the small kitchen table as Parker began filling a glass with water from a pitcher in the fridge. As Parker placed it on the table in front of her sister, she asked, "You doing okay today?"

"I'm fine." Sophie waved her hand, dismissing any further notions that she was not. "It's just that I was on my feet a lot today. Standing in one spot is exhausting."

"What happened to your chair?" Sophie worked as a teller at a Morgan Stanley bank branch in London near their flat. When she had begun chemotherapy sessions, Parker had convinced her to ask the manager for a chair to sit on at the counter so she could keep working even when she became too tired to stand, instead of having to take a break to go sit down every twenty or thirty minutes.

"I still have the chair, don't worry, little sister. But my coworker, you remember Jess, she's eight months pregnant and she was having such back pain today, so I let her use it."

"Dude, stop being so nice." Before Parker could continue, the oven timer went off and she stood from the table. Grabbing the oven mitts from their home in the drawer next to the refrigerator, she opened the oven door, basking in the satisfying smell of fresh brownies that wafted out to meet her. She eyed the chocolate sheet for any signs that it might not be done yet, then removed the baking dish from the oven and placed it on the stovetop to cool. It looked good, and the toothpick test came back clean. When she turned back to Sophie, she found her sister's blue-green eyes, their father's eyes, trained on her. "I'm sorry, but being a human incubator doesn't trump your body attacking itself. Brownies are done."

Sophie's jaw dropped slightly at the comment. "It does, too! Creating a human life certainly does trump having cancer." Parker raised her hands in defeat and sat back down. "Anyway, Aunt Claire said you hurt your knee. You okay?"

"Just like I told her over the phone, I'm fine. Can't even feel it."

Sophie mocked a laugh, making her sister grin. "Hardy-har. Can I have a brownie yet?"

"If you're in the mood to burn yourself, feel free. I won't be able to feel that either."

"You know," Aunt Claire's voice chimed in. Their blonde guardian finally joined them in the kitchen, already changed out of her school clothes into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. From the way she was dressed, Parker could already tell that her aunt would be spending at least part of the night grading some student work. She always liked sweats or pajamas for grading. "Those brownies are going to ruin your dinner. And, Parker, I'm pretty sure I told you to take it easy, not stand around in the kitchen baking. You listen like your father did."

Parker wisely chose to ignore the comment about taking it easy. "Dinner? I think you must be mistaken, lady. The brownies _are_ dinner."

Aunt Claire chuckled and pressed a hand into her niece's head on her way to the fridge, ruffling Parker's red hair. Parker quickly swatted her hand away and began untangling the pieces of hair that were now a mess. "Brownies smell good, as always. Something else you get from your father's side of the family."

That was true; Parker had learned to love baking because of her father. There had never been a single store-bought cake for anyone's birthday in their family. As soon as she was old enough to hold a spoon in her small fist, she had been joyfully enlisted every birthday to help her father bake a cake from scratch. The smells of a successful baking endeavor, like today, always made her think of him. It's what she thought of now, but another reminder also escaped from the back of her mind with the memories. "Before I forget, I have to run out tonight. Alex's birthday is next week and I don't have anything for her yet."

"Do you think you can bring something to Alex while you're out?" Aunt Claire asked, already digging a knife out of the silverware drawer to cut the brownies into squares.

Parker nodded and stood up. If she left now, she could probably be back tonight with enough time to play the PS2 for a little bit before bed or maybe watch the new episode of _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ with Sophie if she was still awake. "Yeah, no problem. Maybe I'll bring her a couple of brownies in exchange for dinner. Can you throw some in a container?"

Aunt Claire agreed and Parker left the kitchen, grabbing her messenger bag off the coffee table in the living room before making her way down the hall to the bedroom. She dropped the grey bag on her bed and picked up the hairbrush on the dresser, quickly running it through her wavy red hair before gathering it into a high ponytail and pulling it through a hair tie. She kept it down for work at the hotel but hated walking around the city with it down and the way the wind always seemed to blow it back in her face no matter what direction she was turned.

Setting the hairbrush down once more, she checked to make sure her bag was packed. Her notebook was still there, along with her wallet, house keys, and headphones. She added the cell phone charger that was currently plugged into the outlet next to the bed and checked to ensure that her cell phone was in her back pocket, where it usually made its home when she wore jeans. All she would need to add was a bottle of water, the brownies, and whatever her aunt wanted her to give to Alex.

Aunt Claire was closed up in the bathroom when she exited her bedroom, and Parker returned to the kitchen where Sophie still sat while she waited. It seemed like her sister could barely keep her eyes open. It was barely 4:30 in the afternoon, a sure sign that she would be out like a light when Parker came home later. It looked like it would be a PS2 night after all. She added a bottle of water from the fridge to her messenger bag, along with the Tupperware container of brownies that were left on the counter. A lone brownie sat out on the counter, waiting to be eaten, and she shoved it in her mouth before turning to her sister. "You look wiped out, Soph. You should go lie down on the couch."

Almost instantly, Sophie's arm reached out. "You'll have to help me up. Sitting down sucked all the energy out of me."

Parker shook her head with a smile. She and her sister may have looked almost completely different but were more alike than either of them would ever admit. If she hadn't said something first, Sophie would have sat in that chair until she fell asleep on the kitchen table. She hated to acknowledge how weak or tired she felt and hated having to ask for help. Choosing not to comment on the behavior this time, Parker bent down slightly so she could pull Sophie's arm over her shoulders and lift her from the kitchen chair.

"Tired phase already, huh?" she asked as they slowly made their way out of the kitchen. Sophie just nodded. She had to go every three weeks for a new dose of chemotherapy for her Stage IV skin cancer, and Parker had taken to labeling the different phases she went through with each cycle. The nausea lasted for about three days, and then the Okay Phase Part One would last for about four. The five days after that were usually the Tired Phase, finishing out into the Okay Phase Part Two which would last until the next cycle began. It seemed like this time, though, she'd gone directly from the Nausea Phase to the Tired Phase.

Together, they finally reached the couch and Sophie was slowly lowered to the cushion. Before standing up, Parker checked to make sure there was a blanket within her reach. "You need anything else?"

"Just the remote." It was within Sophie's hands in seconds, and she smiled gratefully. "And make sure you tell Alex I said hi. _Don't_ tell her how tired I am. Last time you mentioned I was having a rough cycle she brought over five pains of lasagne. I won't be able to even look at lasagne again for months now."

"Promise."

Down the hall, the bathroom door opened and Aunt Claire rejoined them, having just finished taking off her makeup from the day. She handed over a large manilla envelope to Parker. "Give this to Alex and ask her if she can look over the information. It's the experimental treatment the doctor mentioned last time but Alex knows more about this kind of thing than I do. Will you be home for dinner?"

"Not likely." Parker tucked the envelope into her bag next to the brownies, so she wouldn't forget it when she arrived. "There's no chance Alex will let me leave the restaurant without feeding me first. I'll try not to be too late." She let her aunt pull her into a hug and place a kiss on her cheek before she told them both goodbye and left the flat.

Their flat was located on the fifth floor of the estate and she opted to take the stairs down instead of the elevator. By the time she made it to street level, she'd made the mental decision to walk the trip over to Alex's restaurant. Aunt Claire would have told her to take a cab or the trolley, but it was a pretty nice afternoon considering it was only March. The sun was starting to go down, but the sky was still clear and the temperature was just high enough that, with the sweater she was wearing, she would be warm enough to stay outside. The scrape on her knee was only a surface wound, and she felt confident enough that it would be fine with a walk.

At the bottom of the stairs, Parker took in a deep breath of the crisp, fresh air and made her way to the sidewalk that followed the road and turned right. The restaurant was just a handful of bocks away. The walk should only take about half an hour to get there, and would likely be the most exciting thing to happen to her for the rest of the night.

~X~

By the time Parker made it to Alex's Italian restaurant, a cozy place called A Slice of Italy, it was just starting to get dark. Like she'd thought, it had taken about thirty minutes to get there from the flat. There was still birthday shopping to be done, but a quick stop in to see Alex wouldn't take long. The restaurant was near the shops, anyway, so it wasn't as if she was going out of her way.

Alex Rossi was almost like another aunt, having been friends with Aunt Claire for so long. Aunt Claire had lived in England for several years before Parker and Sophie had come to stay, and Alex had been a major part of their lives from the very first day they'd arrived at the airport, looking lost with their whole lives packed into a total of four suitcases. When Sophie had first been diagnosed a little over a year ago, it had been Alex who jumped in to help them navigate all of the struggles that came with it, having a father who had survived a fight with cancer. His had been a different form, but her knowledge had been essential nonetheless in finding the right doctors and asking the right questions. On top of everything else she did for their family, Alex also kept them well fed and either cooked for them or brought them food from the restaurant once or twice a week.

Parker crossed the parking lot to the restaurant's main entrance and walked in. She had been there, either by herself or with her family, so many times by now that she knew the majority of the staff by name and greeted them as she passed through. There was Emily, the bartender with the two-year-old son at home, and Lucinda, the sweet brunette who could never make it through a shift without breaking at least one dish or glass. Myron, the lazy man who actually owned the restaurant, sat, as usual, at the bar, shooting the breeze with the guests. No one, except maybe the occasional new staff member, found it strange anymore when she would walk in, say, hi, and head straight for the kitchen.

There were two entrances into the kitchen: the server alley, where serves could refill drinks and grab supplies for their tables, and the side entrance with swinging doors. Normally, Parker would have taken the shorter of the two routes through the server alley, but she paused when she saw the congestion in the doorway. A girl she couldn't recognize, must have been a newbie, had dropped a tray full of food there. Two other serves had stopped to help her clean up, but now no one would get in or out of the server alley. Impatient, Parker made a beeline for the second entrance through the swinging doors past the bar.

This hallway housed all of the walk-in refrigerators and freezers, along with the liquor cabinet. It was kept chilly in here because of the food storage, enough that she rubbed her hands together as she began the walk towards the back where the cooks were. Even from storage, Alex's British accent, calling out different food orders and demands, could be heard loud and clear.

One of the cooks, an American like Parker named Ben, spotted her first and grinned. "Howdy, Red!" She had always thought he was cute and was glad to see his dimpled smile.

She didn't have time to wave or greet him before Alex was at her side, sweeping her into a bear hug. The woman was short and slightly stout, with a handful of greys peeking through her dark brown hair and a smile that could have warmed even a snowman. "Parker, love, I didn't know you were coming." Much like Aunt Claire, it had taken some time to get Alex to call Parker by her middle name instead of her first name, Riley. "What brings you?"

"I came to mooch, of course. And you know I can't go a whole week without seeing Ben's smile." The boy's cheeks turned slightly red as he flashed Parker his smile once more. He wasn't much older than her, twenty-four to her twenty, and he'd gone out of his way more than a few times to come out and make conversation with her when she was there with her aunt and sister. Parker had come to realize they had quite a lot in common, including a shared love of science-fiction and video games. Even Alex had been not-so-subtly hinting at her to return his attention. "Really, though, I'm passing through on my way to go shopping and Aunt Claire asked me to bring you something." She retrieved the brownies and the manilla envelope from her messenger bag, holding them out to Alex.

Ben was instantly leaning on his forearms over the counter, eyeing the brownies. "Chocolate? One of those better be for me, Red."

"I brought more than one, didn't I?" He winked at her before turning back to his station and Parker smiled to herself. Alex set down the Tupperware on the counter before opening the envelope to inspect the papers inside. "She's asking if you can look over the information we got from the doctor. It's some new treatment they want to try on Sophie since the chemo doesn't seem to be working as fast as they'd like. Something called Avastin, I think."

Alex's expression softened, taking the same look she usually had whenever they touched upon the topic. It wasn't exactly pity, more like an overwhelming sadness that this was happening at all. "Of course, kiddo." Parker's nose twitched; she hated being called a kid. Even at only twenty years old, she'd been through more than enough in her life that she had stopped being a kid a long time ago. It wasn't worth arguing with her about it, though, not right now. "How is Sophie doing?"

"She's in her Tired Phase right now, earlier than normal."

"It happens." Alex looked at the girl before her curiously, crossing her arms as she took everything in. Parker knew Alex was checking to see if she was hurt, if it looked like she had lost any weight, and so on. The chef had no children of her own and was more than happy to treat the two sisters as her own. "And you? How are you holding up?"

Parker shrugged, trying to avoid the topic as much as possible. "I'm five by five, totally fine."

Alex didn't buy it, not one bit. "Listen, love, I know how hard it can be to be the caretaker. Everyone always goes on about the people who are sick, and that much is true. I wouldn't want their pain. But caring for them can be just as draining, in a different kind of way."

Before Parker could stop herself, she was nodding and saying, "I feel guilty for even thinking that it feels like my life has been put on hold. Sophie's suffering, and I'm wondering when I get to live my life. It's just… First, everything got put on hold because of Dad and moving here. Then, when things finally started to feel normal again, Sophie got sick. I finished high school, but now what? And I can't tell either of them this because they'll just feel bad."

"It's hard, I won't lie, but you'll figure it out." Alex was pulling her into a hug again, surprisingly strong for such a small woman. "Maybe there's a way to take care of Sophie and get your life back on track again. You're a strong girl, though, you'll find a way. You want something to eat before you go?"

 _She makes it sound so easy_. "I could eat. Angel hair with meatballs?"

"Coming right up!" Ben said before Alex could even ask him.

While he busied himself working on the dish, along with the other orders he already had posted as tickets above his head, Alex found herself distracted with the other cook in the kitchen, who was newer than Ben and questioning one of the dishes. Parker was left in silence, watching Ben cook as he bobbed his head up and down to a beat she couldn't hear. Every few minutes he would glance back at her and grin or flash a goofy look, making her laugh. He was sweet and had been working with Alex since before Parker and Sophie had moved to London. He'd never asked her out on a date or anything similar, but she'd always gotten the impression that he wanted to. Suddenly getting an idea, she reached into her bag.

A few minutes later, Ben was placing a black takeout container in front of her, the clear lid already turning foggy with steam from the pasta. "Did you want to eat here?" Alex asked, noticing that Parker was getting ready to go. "I can have one of the servers grab you a table."

"Nah," Parker said with a shake of her head. "I've got some shopping to do still, and work in the morning." She grabbed the takeout container and a set of plastic utensils from a box on the counter. At the same time, she slid a piece of paper from the small notebook in her bag across to Ben. He looked confused until he saw the cellphone number scribbled there with her name and understanding dawned on him.

Before either Ben or Alex could say anything about it, Parker turned and started to leave, calling out a goodbye over her shoulder. It would be quicker to go out the backdoor of the restaurant then the front, as it would put her closer to the shops, and she began to make her way down the same hallway full of food storage as before.

The restaurant had four different walk-in cold food storages, two freezers, and two refrigerators positioned across from each other. The door to the second refrigerator swung open when she was about halfway down the hallway, starling her. But this was a restaurant, after all, and cooks were bound to be coming in and out of the storage. The food had to come from somewhere, didn't it?

Parker couldn't help but pause when, instead of a cook, a man she didn't recognize walked out of the fridge. He was tall with dark hair cropped close to his scalp, ears and a nose that were a little too large for his angular face, and a black leather jacket that seemed one size too big for his skinny frame. Who was he? She was certain she'd never seen him before, and he wasn't wearing anything close to a restaurant uniform. In his hands was a bottle, definitely some kind of alcohol, but the label was hidden by his palms. The shape of the bottle and its almost clear color told her that it was likely a type of white wine or champagne. If he wasn't an employee, what was he doing back here, taking liquor from the fridge?

She opened her mouth to call out and ask, but stopped when she came to the only logical conclusion. He was probably one of Myron's friends. The lazy proprietor was always giving freebies to his buddies, one of the many actions that drove Alex crazy about her boss, and this was probably just another case of it happening. It wasn't her place to harass him about it, not when she was walking out with free food. In any case, the man didn't seem to notice her as he walked past and through the door back into the dining area. Putting it out of her mind, she continued down the hallway until she reached the metal door that led to the alley behind the restaurant.

Outside, Parker was glad for the red sweater she had on. The temperature had dropped a few degrees since going in to see Alex and the first brush of cool air on her skin sent a small shiver down her spine. Eager to start eating the pasta during the short walk to the shops, she took a step forward and stopped, seeing a problem with the plan.

The large, red gate that led from the alley to the street was closed, a chain and padlock wrapped around the handles. "Damn it, Myron." The gate wasn't normally closed, but Myron had been throwing fits lately that someone was getting into the dumpsters. As if it was a big deal that raccoons or the starving homeless in the city were scavenging for scraps. He had taken to locking it only at night, so that garbage men and employees could access it during the day, but he must have forgotten to unlock it on his way in that morning.

What she also found odd was the very strange blue box sitting smack dab in the center of the alley. It looked like something straight out of the 1960s and it had definitely never been there before, or at least not on any of the many times Parker had taken this same route out of the restaurant to the shops. It appeared to be made out of wood and large enough to fit one, maybe two, people inside of it, with the words "Police Public Call Box" written on the door facing her direction. It was easy to assume what its original use had been, but what was it doing here? Was Myron's friend responsible for this as well?

Curious, Parker made her way over to the strange blue box. The whole thing was barely larger than her closet in the flat. _Definitely an odd thing to store in an alley_ , she thought, and gave the handle on the front of the door a quick tug. It didn't open. Maybe it was locked, or just not designed to open up.

Whatever the case, it wasn't any concern of hers and she had shopping to do if she wanted to get home before it was too late. She turned back to the restaurant door and pulled on the handle, expecting this door to open at least. It didn't. With a grown, she smacked the door with her empty palm and sighed. Myron must have forgotten to unlock the back door a well, the idiot. It would have been easy to call the restaurant and ask someone to come and open it, but the food was getting cold at this point and she was hungry.

There was a fence off to the side opposite the locked gate and she walked over, leaning back against it as she pulled the lid off of the food. Tucking the lid underneath the plastic container with the wrapper from the fork, she began to eat. The pasta was delicious, as always, and warmed her to the core.

By the time the meal was three-quarters eaten, she was full. There wasn't enough left to make it worthwhile to take home, with not enough for even a quarter of a meal there, so she discarded it into the dumpster behind the restaurant. It was time to finally find a way out of the alley. If she didn't get to the shops soon, they would close before she could finish finding Alex's birthday gift.

The gate hadn't magically unlocked itself, no matter how hard she had willed it to, which meant either banging on the back door until someone heard her or the calling the host stand to send someone back. Might as well try knocking first, just in case. But before she could take more than just a handful of steps closer to the door, a strange sound started going off from inside the building. She stopped, puzzled. The repetitive, shrill ringing tone made it sound like an alarm, but for what? Was there a fire?

She was still standing there confused a moment later when the back door flew open and two people came barreling out. A blonde girl skidded to a stop in the alley while a man in dark clothes slammed his back against the door, closing it behind him. Parker instantly recognized both of them, though she only truly knew one.

The blonde was Rose Tyler. Parker couldn't say they were friends, but they knew each other. Aunt Claire knew Jackie, Rose's mother, and the two women would get together quite often for a girls' night, usually with some other ladies they knew. Parker had hung out with Rose a handful of times when the get together was at one of their flats. They weren't close, but were somewhere in the middle of being friends and acquaintances. The news had been going on that morning about Henrik's, the place Rose worked, blowing up last night.

The man, though… She recognized him as the same man she'd seen coming out of the walk-in fridge with the bottle of champagne in his hands. She'd assumed he was friends with Myron, but then what was he doing out here with Rose? And why were they out here in the first place?

Rose was out of breath and looking around frantically, only stopping when her eyes landed on the redhead still standing near the dumpster. "Parker? What are you doing here?"

What was she doing here? That seemed like a weird thing to ask, given the circumstances. "I could ask you the same thing, Rose." There was a loud bang, quickly followed by a second one, and her attention swiveled from Rose to the back door. A large dent stuck out of the door now that hadn't been there a moment ago, and her heart skipped a beat. Parker knew how heavy that door was, made out of reinforced steel. It was to prevent burglars, according to Myron. It was a thick, _heavy_ metal door. What could be banging on it so hard that it was caving in? "What the hell?"

The man with Rose pointed something in his hand that she couldn't see at the door behind him, while Rose, ignoring Parker's questions, turned and scrambled over to the gate leading out of the alley. She let out a strangled sound when she found the chains and padlock keeping the gate shut. "Open the gate!" She wasn't speaking to Parker anymore, but to the man who seemed oddly calm compared to Rose's panicked state. "Use that tube thing, come on!"

"Sonic Screwdriver." Whatever was locked inside the restaurant continued its assault on the door and new dents appeared in the metal sheeting with each thunderous bang. Looking wholly unconcerned with it and seemingly oblivious to the girl he didn't know staring at him, the man meandered across the alley until he was standing in front of the blue box. He reached a hand into the pocket of his leather jacket and retrieved something small and shiny. A key, Parker realized as he plugged it into the door of the blue box. With a twist of his wrist, the door swung open inwards; the same door that hadn't budged for her before. "Tell you what, let's hide in here."

"Sorry, hide from what?" Again, the strange man showed no signs of having heard Parker, of having even noticed that she was there, as he disappeared into the box. By now, almost the entire center of the door had been punched outward, and she wasn't sure how much more it could take before it gave way to whatever was strong enough to bust it down. "Rose?"

Rose's face was a picture of disbelief as she met Parker's eyes again. Another bang had her tearing them away with a terrified squeak. What could be so bad that it had Rose freaking out like this? "It's gonna get us!" the blonde shouted, pulling on the gate's chains once more before giving up. The gate wasn't going to open, not without bolt cutters or a saw of some kind. "Doctor!" With a shout, Rose ran until she was standing halfway between Parker and the doorway the man had disappeared into.

Parker was about to ask Rose what she was calling a doctor for when another bang had her sprinting to stand next to the girl she barely knew. Whatever was going to come through that door, two people were better than one, or so she figured. Rose was just staring at the blue box in uncertainty. She clearly knew no more about the box than Parker did, or maybe she didn't like what she did know. "Rose, what's back there? What's going to get us?"

Suddenly reminded that she wasn't alone, Rose forced her eyes away from the door, meeting the frown on Parker's face. "No time to explain. Oh, just… Come on." A decisive look passed over her as she grabbed the redhead's hand in her own and quickly forced the two of them through the small doorway into the blue box.

They both stopped as soon as they stepped inside. Rose stood there for the length of a millisecond, jaw hanging open, before she turned around and bolted out through the door she'd just come through. Parker hardly noticed, too busy taking in the fact that the room she was standing in, the room of the very tiny blue police box that she had stood in front of, was at least fifty times larger than the box her eyes had seen.

She swallowed hard, the pasta in her stomach rolling uncomfortably at the sight before her.

She had seen the blue box. She had touched the blue box. She knew how big the blue box was, and it wasn't _this big_. The interior of the box was dome-shaped, and she couldn't even begin to wrap her mind around how that was even _possible_. The walls were a bronze sort of color, with more hexagons than she could count indented into them for whatever reason, and the floor was made of what looked like metal, possibly steel grates. There was a small ramp beneath her feet that led up to the main floor, which was surrounded by metal railings. Around the room were columns, the type which might be found in a house to support its structure, but they reminded her more of coral than columns. In the center of the room was the strangest thing of all, if it was possible to get past the fact that everything about this was stranger than she could have ever imagined. The centerpiece was round, filled with buttons and levers that she could never in a million years have guessed the purpose of, with a long translucent tube made up of different layers in the middle that stretched up to the domed ceiling. Sprouting from the top of the center column were all sorts of wires that extended throughout the room.

Parker made herself take a breath and move her feet up the ramp onto the main floor. The man in the leather jacket was facing away from her, fiddling with things on the main centerpiece. Maybe, she realized, it was a console of some sort, made to control… Control what, though? On his right sat the thing he had been holding before that she hadn't been able to identify. Now that it wasn't tucked into his arm, she could see what it was. Or, rather, _who_ it was.

It was a head. More specifically, it was Mickey's head. Mickey Smith was Rose's boyfriend. Parker had met the man once or twice, on occasions when he had shown up at the Tyler flat during one of the girls' nights Aunt Claire would drag her to. He seemed nice. He seemed like an idiot, Parker couldn't lie, but he seemed nice. Why did this man have Mickey's head? Why wasn't Mickey's head on his body, more importantly?

The longer she stared at it, the more she started to think that it wasn't a head at all. Well, it was, but it wasn't a real head. The skin on it didn't look like flesh. Rather, it had more of a matte finish, sort of like plastic.

Parker forced herself to stop staring at the head that wasn't a head just as Rose scurried back in through the door, out of breath and looked bewildered. "It's going to follow us!" Was Parker imagining things, or did the door close by itself behind Rose? Was there a draft? She still had no clue what the blonde was going on about, but that wasn't as concerning as the fact that she had no clue what she was even standing in at the moment.

"The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door and, believe me, they've tried." The man turned towards them finally, his eyes sliding over Rose with ease and landing on Parker. He didn't seem shocked to see the redhead standing there.

"Hello there, I'm the Doctor."


	2. The Rose and the Thief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up uploading both chapters 1 and 2 on the same day because this is a delayed upload. Chapter 3 will be up soon! Don't forget to check out the link to my Trello on my profile if you're interested in seeing where I am at in the writing process with any of my fics. I appreciate any kudos or comments you choose to leave!

Chapter 2: The Rose and the Thief

* * *

_~ "Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."~_

JK Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince_

* * *

"Hello there, I'm the Doctor."

"O-Okay…" The intensity of his stare, stormy blue eyes weighing down on her own green ones, left Parker stuttering. The way he said hello and the expectant rise of his eyebrows told her that he wasn't surprised to see her there. _He did see me standing there, after all. So, this jerk chose to ignore me then?_

"Parker!"

Rose's sudden hiss made Parker realize she'd spoken her thoughts out loud, the absurdity of everything going on at the moment making her brain verbalize her thoughts. The Doctor, this rather large-eared stranger, frowned down at her. She uselessly tried to will her mouth to stop moving, something she'd never been good at. There was something about him that threw her off. He didn't _look_ intimidating or dangerous, but that was the impression she got from him, a feeling that if she stepped too far there would be no coming back.

But Parker's mouth had always had a mind of its own, and this time was no different. Once it was moving, it wouldn't stop.

"You saw me standing there, and you didn't say anything? No explanation for whatever the hell was going on back there? I'm just standing there, minding my own business, eating my dinner, in the alley that _you_ brought something dangerous to! Mind you, I know how heavy that door is. That's reinforced steel because Myron is such a paranoid freak that he needs the world's heaviest door!" She wasn't sure she was even making sense anymore as words just kept tumbling from her mouth. The man appeared slightly taken back and… amused? This situation was _not_ amusing. "Whatever you were running from back there had to be pretty terrible, especially considering how scared of it Rose was. And I was standing right there! You saw me, I know you did! What, were you just going to leave me there to be eaten by whatever was busting down the door?"

"Are you done?"

Parker stared at him, feeling her face heat up with rage. Who was this man, who seemed only slightly irritated at her outburst? His question sounded like he was talking to a child throwing a small fit over a toy, instead of talking to an adult woman he'd put in danger.

"Yeah, I guess so," she snorted, indignancy filling her tone.

"Of course I saw you. I'm not blind. Figured if you were smart you'd follow along, and here you are." He nodded once, then turned to the blonde. Rose was as white as a ghost, her bewildered eyes caught between staring at the impossible space around them and the man before her. "You know her?"

"Yeah…" It seemed to take Rose a moment to realize he'd asked her a question, and then she stirred herself from the sort of stupor she was in. "This is Parker. My Mum knows her aunt."

"Parker Sloane," the redhead said, feeling the need to clarify. She was just glad that Rose hadn't said her name was Riley. Parker and Rose weren't quite close enough to be called friends, and she'd never told Rose why she went by her middle name. That was a story she didn't want to get into right this moment when there were so many other more important topics occupying her mind. "Now, who exactly are you?"

The man rolled his eyes, which, in turn, had Parker rolling hers. "The Doctor. Don't you listen?"

Just how did Rose know this guy? "The Doctor? Just… the Doctor?" No name to go with it? Parker wondered what kind of doctor he was. He certainly didn't look like any medical professional she knew, and she'd seen plenty of them in the last two years. "Nevermind, that's not important. Where am I?"

Instead of answering her question, this Doctor asked her one of his own. "What d'you mean, eating dinner? Who eats dinner in an alley?"

She was going crazy. That was the only explanation for this impossible room and this lunatic standing in front of her. She'd officially cracked. "I can eat dinner wherever I feel like, thank you very much." When he just continued to stare, she was overcome by a distinct feeling that he wouldn't be answering any of her questions until she gave him a serious response. His blue eyes, vivid even in the dim light of the room, were unnerving. "Alex, the kitchen manager, is a good friend. She feeds me when I stop by. I _was_ going to go shopping but the gate and the back door were locked so I was waiting for someone to open the door when you so _rudely_ brought something back there to try and kill me." Would he answer her questions now? "What was it, that thing banging on the door?"

"Living Plastic."

Her hand went to her head, which had begun to throb by now. Maybe whatever they'd brought to that alley had actually killed her and this was all some kind of post-death nightmare. "Sure… Let's go with that."

"Um…" Rose waved her hand in the air a bit as if asking permission to enter the conversation. She'd moved a step or two closer to Parker since telling the Doctor her name, or maybe Parker had moved closer to Rose without realizing it. "Can we focus on…" She gestured the same hand in the air, at both nothing specific and _everything_ at the same time.

"Right." The Doctor nodded again, a go-ahead for Rose to continue. "Where do you want to start?"

"The inside's... bigger than the outside?"

"Maybe the outside is smaller than the inside," Parker added, waiting for Rose to get past the obvious. She wasn't sure how the inside was larger-perhaps this was all just one big optical illusion-but they were wasting time going over facts they already knew.

"Yes." Though he didn't specify, she had a feeling he was talking to both of them. The way his eyes were locked onto Rose and the slight upturn of his lips when he looked at her had Parker feeling like she'd interrupted something more intimate than it appeared. How long had they known each other?

"It's alien."

She couldn't help but roll her eyes a second time at Rose's observation. "Of course it's alien, Rose. An alien ship for an alien man."

When Parker glanced over at Rose again, she felt bad for the slight snap in her voice. The other girl was shaking like a leaf, her skin pale and brown eyes wide in disbelief. Parker seemed to be handling this better than her, though she wasn't entirely sure why. This had her freaked out, too, after all. This was clearly an alien spaceship, and she'd just met a man she assumed was an alien running from something he had called "living plastic."

_I have always believed in aliens. Guess this is just the proof I was missing._

She grew up watching science fiction with her father and it had never seemed quite possible that humans were the only sentient beings in the whole universe. This ship had to be alien and, if the ship was alien, that meant this Doctor had to be alien, too, didn't it?

Rose's eyes grew ever so slightly wider as Parker's assumption settled over her. "Is Parker right? Are you alien?"

"Yes. Is that alright?" Neither of the girls spoke, and the Doctor's voice took on a slightly impressed tone as he directed his next words at Parker. "You seem to be taking this well."

 _How else am I supposed to take this?_ She was at a loss for words. What was she supposed to say, that being an alien wasn't alright? That wouldn't change anything. _What isn't okay_ , she thought to herself as she wrung her hands around the strap of the messenger bag in front of her, _is the fact that he hasn't apologized for ignoring me back there_. She didn't say that out loud, as much as she might have wanted to. There were more important things to think about right now.

When she didn't speak, he continued, casting his eyes about the ship. "It's called the TARDIS, this thing. T-A-R-D-I-S, that's Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."

Rose was only a few steps away from her now, though Parker still wasn't sure which one of them had crossed the grated floor first. As she turned to look at the shaking girl, knowing that Rose wasn't handling the shock well, Parker's eyes caught a glimpse of a door in the back of the room. It looked like it might lead into some sort of hallway, and she wondered just how much more there was to this ship. How was it possible for all of this to fit inside that blue box she'd seen in the alley? Her gaze continued to wander, landing after a moment on the head, the one that looked like Mickey Smith, that sat on the control panel just to the right of the Doctor. "Why do you have a copy of Mickey's head?"

**~Rose~**

Rose couldn't believe that Parker seemed so unfazed. It was just one of the many items on the list of things that she couldn't believe right now. Though, with what she knew about Parker and the girl's life so far, it made sense that she was more used to surprises than Rose was. After all, her own nineteen years of life so far had been anything but surprising. She'd wanted more information on the Doctor, on this strange man who had saved her life before blowing up her job, but now she couldn't help but wonder, in a little bit of both awe and terror, what she had gotten herself into.

At the mention of Mickey, Rose's hand flew to her mouth. A sound caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob escaped her. Mickey! "Did they kill him? Mickey, is he dead?" A rush of shame filled her; she'd almost forgotten all about him.

"Oh…" the Doctor frowned, looking slightly uncomfortable suddenly at the sight of the sobbing woman in front of him. "Didn't think of that."

"He's my boyfriend. You pulled off his head!" A tear slipped from her eye and down her cheek. _Oh, Mickey_ … "They copied him and you didn't even think?" Parker's hand nudged her shoulder, then directed her attention away from the Doctor and back to the head. "And now you're just gonna let him melt?" The rubbery sheen of the plastic head had turned into a sticky goop, the entire thing beginning to melt like someone had taken a hot hairdryer to it for a few moments too long and drip down into the inner workings of the center console.

"Melt?" Confusion gave way to panic as the Doctor turned around to see the head morphing into a puddle. "Oh, no, no, no!" he shouted as he frantically began running around the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers. Almost immediately, the TARDIS began to shake.

With every button and lever the man touched, the ship around them quaked more and more. A wheezing sort of sound appeared and timed itself to the rhythm of the tremors that quickly threw Parker off balance and had Rose grabbing at the railing behind her. "What're you doing?" the blonde yelled, her voice quaking with the ship.

"Reviving the signal, it's fading! Wait, I've got it…" As he threw another lever, his eyes shifted to look at a small screen attached to the column in the center of the console. "No!" Some sort of tube inside of the column began to move up and down slowly, picking up speed as the intensity of the shaking and groaning increased. "Almost there, almost there! Here we go!"

Just as suddenly as it had started, the ship around them settled down. No more shaking, no more groaning. Rose released her white-knuckled grip on the handrail behind her, keeping it poised just in case she needed to latch on again. She opened her mouth to ask the Doctor what exactly had just happened, but he bolted down the ramp past the girls and through the doors of the TARDIS without a word. She tried to grab at him as he passed and missed. "You can't go out there. It's not safe!"

When she turned to the girl next to her, Rose found a look of confusion and bewilderment on Parker's face that mirrored the one she wore. "If he wants to get himself killed, that's on him," Parker said with a shrug.

The two girls waited for any sound of a struggle. By now, the headless body that looked like her boyfriend had to have broken through the restaurant door. Had it gotten the Doctor? What would she do if it had? Rose shifted on her feet once, twice, staring at the doors she'd come barreling through just moments before. When her curiosity finally got the better of her fear, she quickly pulled open the door on her left, taking a half step out into the world before stopping. "Parker," she called back, her voice full of breathy astonishment. "You're going to want to see this."

Rose let herself take another few steps out of the TARDIS onto the street, almost unable to comprehend and believe what she was seeing. They had moved. The alley behind the restaurant was gone, replaced with a view of the Thames River. It was nighttime by now, lights lit along the length of the river to allow pedestrians and boats to see. It was quiet, or as quiet as it could get in London. She almost didn't notice the sound of a car horn blaring somewhere behind her as Parker stepped out of the strange blue box to stand her by side. "No way…"

**~The Doctor~**

Looking out over the Thames River, the Doctor leaned against the cement wall that bordered the length of the water. His thin lips were flattened in irritation. "I lost the signal," he said, though he knew that neither of the humans behind him would have any inkling of what he was talking about. "I got so close." _So close_. He'd let his pride in the TARDIS get in the way. _No_ , he thought, his irritation burrowing even deeper. He'd been showing off. He slapped the wall with his hand before pushing off and turning back to the women behind him.

Rose was the first one to speak, her brown eyes wide as she glanced back at his TARDIS. The pure wonder on her face was why he'd been showing off. It was as if he couldn't resist. "We've moved. Does it fly?"

Before he could answer, Parker was shaking her head. "No." There was a degree of certainty in her voice that had the Doctor watching her as she drifted over to the cement barrier. She caught his eye for the briefest of moments before leaning over next to him to look at her wavy reflection in the dim lights. Her red hair caught the glow of a lamp nearby, giving it the appearance of fire instead of copper. "We weren't moving long enough for it to have flown here. I'm guessing teleportation of some kind. Disappears in one place and reappears in another?"

"Hmph, you're not as stupid as you look." In the river, Parker's reflection pursed its lips. The Doctor couldn't remember the last time someone had so accurately understood the way the TARDIS traveled. For an ape he had just stumbled across, she was almost impressive. "Not quite. You wouldn't understand how it works."

Rose crossed the sidewalk to place her hand on the girl's shoulder, and the Doctor took that as his cue to walk away. "You okay, Parker?" He didn't have time for domestics right now. He'd lost the signal, too caught up in the humans he had involved by mistake to remember to start tracking it before the head disintegrated. That was the problem with the Living Plastic; their reliance on a transmission signal was too simple.

Parker stared up at the London Eye across the river before responding. "Guess so. This wasn't exactly how I thought my night would go. I was supposed to be out shopping for a birthday gift by now. You?"

"I'll let you know when I figure that out." Good answer. So far, Rose had taken everything that had happened in the last couple of days remarkably well. Not every human reacted with as much curiosity as she had or even with the same determination she'd shown when she had offered to help him. He hadn't meant to involve her, but Rose didn't seem to mind. Parker, on the other hand… He wasn't sure what to make of her yet. It was too soon.

Rose's voice snapped him back to attention. "If we're somewhere else, what about that headless thing? It's still on the loose."

There was no time, however, for the endless questions. "It melted with the head. Are you going to witter on all night?"

Rose cast Parker a sideways glance at the snark in the Doctor's voice, before sighing and running a hand through her blonde hair. "I'll have to tell his grandmother…" The Doctor stared at the two of them, lost in thoughts of the Living Plastic. How was he supposed to track down their base without the signal, and what was Rose going on about now? "Mickey!" she snapped, seeing the lost look on his face. "I'll have to tell his grandmother he's dead, and you just went and forgot him again!"

Domestics again. _This_ was why the Time Lord traveled alone. When humans got involved, they were bound to bring their issues with them. Rose huffed in frustration when he merely shrugged the accusation off, waving a hand dismissively at him and turning to face the river again.

"You were right. You _are_ alien."

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest as his jaw dropped slightly in indignation. "Look," he said, somewhat defensively. "If I did forget some kid called Mickey-"

"Yeah, he's not a kid."

"It's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering about on top of this planet, alright?"

"Alright?" Rose squeaked. Her cheeks were flushed now, eyes rimmed with red.

Throughout the exchange, the Doctor was aware of Parker's silence and of the hands that clenched into fists at her sides. She seemed to be trying to fight an urge, and losing the battle against it. When he opened his mouth to speak again, the redhead exploded. "No, that's not alright!" In a few quick steps, she stood chest to chest with him, or as close as she could with their height difference. She breathed through her nose hard as she tilted her head up to meet his eyes. He felt his eyes widen momentarily at her boldness, and he allowed his curiosity to silence him.

"Mickey is a person, a human being. I don't care if he's the biggest dumbo on the planet, he still matters. He's a person and that _matters_. It's not 'alright' to forget about him just because you have other things to deal with." She started to turn away, then seemed to gain a second wind. "Maybe you're telling the truth, maybe you're just some nutter. Or maybe none of this is real and that thing chasing you killed me because you were too busy saving the other so-called apes, but saving the planet doesn't mean it's okay to forget about someone or act like you don't care."

The trio fell quiet for a moment, the sound of her angry huffs of air the only noise between them. Rose stood behind the girl, a hand covering signs of a smile. Parker's eyes, a soft shade of olive flecked with spots of hazel, sparked with a rage that caught the Doctor off guard. How old was this girl? She was young as far as human years went, even younger if he considered how old _he_ was, and yet there was no hesitation anywhere that he could see. She wasn't backing down. _Why take this so personally?_ It wasn't as if he'd spoken or acted against her.

This girl was waiting for something, that much was clear, likely an apology. Humans were obsessed with apologies. As far as he was concerned, the term "I'm sorry" did little to comfort or fix the problem one was apologizing for and served almost no purpose. Instead, the only thing he could offer her was, "You're right." Copper eyebrows shot up, the only sign of surprise in her otherwise frustrated expression.

"If you're an alien," Rose's voice interrupted the staring match happening between Parker and the Doctor, drawing both of their attention toward her. "Then how come it sounds like you're from the North?"

"Lots of planets have a North!"

"What's up with your ship?" Parker asked, the fire draining from her voice as she stepped back and pointed her thumb at the TARDIS.

"Yeah, what's a police public call box?"

The Doctor couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. Uncrossing his arms, he patted one hand against the doorframe of his wonderful blue box. "It's a telephone box from the 1950s. It's a disguise."

That had both of the girls smiling. All of the hostility from a moment ago seemed to have vanished as Rose stepped closer, her own hand coming up to briefly stroke the side of the ship. "And this Living Plastic… What's it got against us?"

"You still haven't explained to me what exactly this Living Plastic is, either of you," Parker pointed out.

He had almost forgotten that Parker hadn't actually seen the aliens yet. "An alien. Just like the name sounds, it's the basic equivalent of your plastic, but it's alive. Controlled by the Nestene Consciousness." She nodded, devoid of any signs of confusion or unease at the idea. "It loves you. You've got such a good planet. Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air… Perfect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. It's food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein plants rotted, so Earth… Dinner."

"But it's plastic."

"Yep."

"You're telling me that plastic dolls and mannequins are coming to life all over London because of this… What'd you call it, Nestene Consciousness?"

"Not just the mannequins and not just in London," the Doctor corrected her, looking between her and Rose to ensure they both understood just how serious the situation was. "Plastic, all over the world. Every artificial thing waiting to come alive. The dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables…"

With a small snort of amusement, Rose added, "The breast implants…"

Suddenly Parker was shaking her head. She turned around and walked off a few steps, a hand running through her hair. "How am I supposed to believe you? What if you're just crazy?"

"Believe me then, Parker." Rose reached out a hand, halting Parker by the shoulder as the girl began to pace. "I know it's real, 'cause it came for me. Twice. And twice the Doctor saved me. At the shop, right before it blew up, and then when it took Mickey's body. You saw the melting head, didn't you?"

A moment passed in silence. The Doctor could almost see the thoughts warring in Parker's head as she frowned, wrinkled her nose, then sighed. "I did. I did see the head. So, what, Doctor, you just run around stopping evil plastic from taking over the world?"

"Something like that." The Time Lord found himself unable to take his eyes off of her, a question brewing in the back of his mind. Could he trust her, this human girl he hadn't planned on? Rose seemed to, and he felt confident that he could trust Rose. But he wasn't sure yet what exactly to make of the strange redhead in front of him. She was clever, he could give her that, and he liked clever. "You can walk away, you know. You can leave." Forcing his eyes away from Parker, he turned to Rose now, wanting to make sure they both knew what they were getting into. "Neither of you were supposed to be involved in this, just in the wrong places at the wrong times. It might be dangerous."

**~Parker~**

_I could walk away…_ The thought rang like a bell, loud and clear, through Parker's mind. She took a shaky breath in, her hands winding themselves around the strap of her shoulder bag once more.

Rose's answer was automatic, and Parker felt a little jealous of the resolve on the blonde's face. "I want to see this through to the end." Rose wasn't just some girl the Doctor had found eating dinner in an alley. She had seen the Living Plastic, had known the alien man before her for more than just the last thirty minutes. "It came for me twice. It hurt Mickey, and I've already come this far."

This hadn't been her plan. All Parker had wanted to do was visit Alex, drop off the envelope and the brownies, and go shopping. This was absolutely insane; thirty minutes, maybe an hour, ago, she had been giving the cute cook her phone number. Now she'd seen a spaceship that was bigger on the inside, and been teleported from one place to another without being asked. The Doctor was giving her an out, a way back to her normal life. But, if she was being honest, her normal life was so… tedious. She loved her sister and her aunt more than anything, would do just about anything for them. Everything she had said to Alex, though, had been true. She felt trapped.

"I'm with Rose." Before Parker had a chance to second guess herself, she blurted out her decision. _I said it. No going back now_. "I've been waiting for something, anything, to happen to me. Maybe this is it." _Something to make me feel alive again_. "So I'm in. On one condition: I have to make it home safe to my family." The momentarily stunned expression on the Doctor's face morphed into a wide grin. Parker and Rose shared a look, wearing their own similar grins.

"I can't make you any promises, Parker," the Doctor said, serious once more. "But, cross my hearts, I'll do my best."

Hearts? As in, more than one? That would be a question for another time, Parker decided. _If there is another time_. His best would have to do, because there was no way she was backing out now. "Nevermind. So, Living Plastic. How do we stop it?"

Reaching into his leather jacket, he withdrew a long test tube filled with a dark blue liquid. "Anti-plastic."

Rose snorted with a shake of her head. "Anti-plastic?"

"Don't mock."

As Parker stared at the tube in his hand, a realization dawned on her that made her slightly uncomfortable. He was talking about stopping this alien threat, the Nestene Consciousness as he'd called it, as much as she still wasn't sure she fully believed all that. "Do you mean to kill it?" she asked, wondering if they could hear the conflicted tone in her voice. A darkness passed over his eyes as he nodded, and she frowned. That didn't seem fair.

If the Doctor had noticed the odd look Parker was wearing, he didn't say anything. Instead, he turned and began to wander past the TARDIS, pondering out loud. "But first I've got to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?"

"Hold on," Rose interrupted, following after him. "Hide what?"

They stopped again a few feet down the sidewalk. From the other side of the river, the London Eye loomed over them, somewhat ominous despite its glow. Parker's eyes were glued to it as it slowly turned itself around in a circle. She'd only been on it once, back when she and Sophie had first moved to London to live with Aunt Claire. The heights had made her so nauseous that she'd almost thrown up at the top of the ride.

"What's it look like?" Rose's voice pulled her attention back in, and Parker was vaguely aware of the Doctor mentioning some kind of transmitter. Made sense, she realized. How else would one alien mind control all the plastic in the world?

"Like a transmitter. Round and massive, slap bang in the middle of London." He paced around in front of the railing, agitatedly looking up and out over the London skyline. "A huge circular metal structure, like a dish, like a wheel. Close to where we're standing. Must be completely invisible."

Seeing Parker still staring up at the Ferris wheel, Rose nudged the girl standing next to her. It took Parker a moment to understand what Rose was getting at, and a laugh bubbled out of her when she did. "What?" the Doctor asked, curious at the sly grins on his companions' faces. "What?"

A total of three times, he glanced back and forth between the London Eye behind him and the girls in front of him. The third time, it was like a lightbulb went off over his head. "Oh… Fantastic!"

Without warning, the Doctor suddenly took off, running full speed down the sidewalk. The two girls stared after him for a second. Then Rose grabbed hold of Parker's hands and, with a crazy look in her brown eyes, pulled the redhead along with her as she began to run as well. Parker had no choice but to laugh and pick up her pace, or risk being dragged along.

Down the Westminster Bridge, the three of them ran. At some point, Rose let go of Parker's hand. The latter did her best to keep up. Parker wasn't as fast as them. She wasn't used to running. It wasn't an activity she was encouraged to do and, in fact, had been banned from even considering joining the track team in high school by her father and then Aunt Claire, despite her arguments that she could handle it.

Growing up, the many different schools she'd attended had never wanted her to join, either. She'd always been barred from sports and roughhousing, from most types of physical activities besides certain ones like swimming or yoga. The risk of getting hurt, and the other risks that came when she did get hurt, were too great. Not that anyone had ever asked her opinion on the matter. But now, her legs pumping beneath her, she couldn't believe she'd ever let them stop her. She wanted to _run_.

In front of her, Rose caught up with the Doctor. Without looking, he reached his hand down to take hers, their fingers locking together. The wind lifted the sound of their laughter, carrying it back to the redhead trailing behind them. Parker couldn't help but wonder, not for the first time since locking eyes with Rose behind the restaurant, how long the two of them had known each other. One second, they seemed like strangers. The next, it almost seemed like they'd always been in each other's lives.

As if feeling her eyes boring into the back of his head, the Doctor turned a glance back at her. When he found her keeping pace, he nodded, his face full of a grin that she found herself returning. When was the last time she had done something this crazy?

 _Never_ , she realized with a sudden shock. _I've never done something crazy._

They kept running, all while Parker did her best not to trip over her own feet at the pace she wasn't used to. The burning feeling in her chest as her lungs gasped for air was odd, but exhilarating. Down the length of the Westminster Bridge and across the water to the other side, they ran until they stood at the foot of the London Eye.

The lights of the Ferris wheel filled Parker's vision, clouding her mind with thoughts of the past. All of a sudden, she was back at the funeral, her clear green eyes a stark contrast to Sophie's red-rimmed blue ones. Sophie's trembling hand clutched her sister's and she asked, probably for the hundredth time that day, why this had happened to them. Parker had been filled with too much anger to feel sad; Sophie was the opposite.

Sophie had always been her opposite.

"Parker?" the Doctor's deep voice pulled her from her thoughts and she turned to find him watching her with a frown.

"Yeah, sorry." She shook her head to dispel the memories, then stepped toward him and away from the past. Away from the tightness building in her chest. She couldn't afford to get trapped inside the memories, not like she used to. They hurt too much, or at least she imagined that's what hurting would feel like.

He didn't take his eyes off of her, even as he said, "Still, we've found the transmitter. The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."

As Rose began to search the area around the London Eye, Parker found herself meeting the Doctor's gaze with an uncertain stare of her own. In her attempt to distract herself from the memories the Ferris wheel brought up, her brain had once more filled with thoughts of the anti-plastic inside the Doctor's pocket. "What are you planning on doing, Doctor?" she asked. A small gust of wind off the water blew a lock of her ponytail into her face and she reached up to brush it back. "About this alien, the Nestene Consciousness, I mean. Are you just going to kill it?"

Not for the first time, it felt like the Doctor was sizing her up, his gaze scanning over her completely from the Keds on her feet to the shine of the lights reflected in her eyes. His expression hardened, and she wondered if it was because of something he had seen in her. "If it comes to that. I've got to give it a chance first. I don't want to kill it, but I will if I have to."

Rose's voice called over to them, pulling the Doctor's attention away. "What about down here?" He jogged off to join Rose where she leaned over the railing bordering the river, leaving Parker alone with a new onslaught of thoughts.

According to what the Doctor had said before, this Nestene Consciousness, whatever kind of alien it may be, was just looking for a home. Its own home had been destroyed in some kind of war. Of course it wanted a new home. Was that so bad? Parker understood that feeling well, of wanting to belong somewhere, anywhere, so much that sometimes it was hard to breathe. The Doctor was going to kill this alien, all because it wanted a home, a place to belong?

Without realizing it, she had walked over to stand silently next to the Doctor. He was leaning over the railing next to Rose, eyeing a manhole cover that would bring them down below the river. Parker barely registered the manhole cover in their sights; she was too busy staring at the Doctor's pocket. Before, in front of his so-called TARDIS, she'd watched him drop the tube of anti-plastic into the right pocket of his jacket. It was right there, just a few inches away. All she had to do was reach her hand in…

Slowly and silently, she did just that. The Doctor and Rose continued their conversation about the underground entrance and what they might find once they were down there, none the wiser as Parker's fingers wrapped around the glass tube and carefully withdrew it from his pocket. She glanced down at it long enough to confirm it was the correct tube before sliding it into the messenger bag at her side. Part of her was sure the Doctor would turn around any second now, demanding it back, but it seemed as if he truly hadn't noticed anything, too occupied with Rose.

"What do you think, Parker?" Her heart skipped a beat at the Doctor's question, positive that she'd been wrong and he had actually noticed her thievery. When he simply pointed a finger at the manhole cover below, she released a shaky breath, realizing he was just trying to include her. All he wanted was her opinion, not his property.

She hoped that he couldn't tell she was acting weird or that his question had made her jump. He hadn't known her for very long, after all. "Well, it definitely leads underground, and you said that underground is where your alien would be. So, I think it could be worth a shot."

"Sounds good to me." Without any more debate, he led them down a small set of stairs to the platform they had just been staring at and knelt down in front of the manhole cover. Placing his hands on the lid, he twisted the handle until the cover could be lifted off to the side. An eerie red light filtered out along with some steam from the warmer temperatures of the sewer.

Parker suddenly found herself second guessing her decision to come along as the Doctor lowered himself into the opening and onto the ladder that descended into the sewer. What did she really know about either of them, the Doctor or Rose, that had made her think following them was a sane decision? Now she was supposed to follow after them into the sewer to confront some kind of alien. What exactly did she think she was doing?

She had to admit she was curious, though, and her curiosity was something she never had much luck overcoming. When Rose asked her, "You okay climbing down?" Parker nodded. She knew why Rose was asking, of course.

"Thanks, but I'll be fine." Climbing a ladder wouldn't kill her. She was briefly reminded of her knee, scraped in her fall on the sidewalk earlier, but even that would be fine. Climbing down a few rungs wouldn't bother the injury much.

Parker waited until Rose was halfway down the ladder before descending into the manhole as well. It was a short drop, and it took a long moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim glow of the sewer. Chains hung from the ceiling, with no obvious purpose other than to clink together ominously, and the room they found themselves in was small, with a door off to the side leading further into the underground. With a smile that said he was enjoying this a bit too much, the Doctor made his way to the door and pushed it open.

They passed through the door, finding themselves on some metal scaffolding built against the brick walls of the sewer. Stairs made of grates with metal bars for railings led down to a larger grey platform overlooking the rest of the room. In the center, occupying a giant round vat that Parker thought might have once been used to store river water or something similar, was a bright orange mass. It was similar to what she imagined lava might look like, only it seemed to wobble and sway in the vat with a deliberate motion.

"The Nestene Consciousness, that's it, inside the vat." The Doctor tipped his head in the direction of the orange mass. "A living, plastic creature." Now that he mentioned it, Parker could see a sort of rubbery sheen coming off of the creature, even as bright as it was.

This was an alien? Parker had trouble imagining just why the Doctor, who had intimidated her with just one look, could possibly be afraid of this thing. After all, it was just a big orange lump. What harm could it do?

Rose looked over the railing at it, wrinkling her nose. "Well, then, tip in your anti-plastic and let's go." At her words, Parker cast Rose a sharp look. She wanted to kill it, just like that? Didn't she care that this thing was, supposedly, a living creature, with thoughts and feelings. who just wanted to find a home to call its own? But then, Parker figured, Rose had probably never had to feel like she didn't belong somewhere, like she didn't have a home. Rose wouldn't understand the way this alien felt, not like Parker did.

"I'm not here to kill it," the Doctor said with a frown in Rose's direction. Parker nodded along, feeling a sense of relief that he wasn't looking for the tube that should have been in his pocket. "I've got to give it a chance. Come on."

Down the flight of metal steps they went, stopping on the next platform. As they grew closer, the orange blob down below was beginning to look less like lava and more like the creature the Doctor had claimed it was. It shifted, a round portion that looked remarkably like a head of some sort lifting up, as if glaring at the three of them up in the rafters.

The Doctor stared at the alien in the vat, and it seemed to be staring back. "I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract, according to convention fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation." An odd shrieking sound resonated throughout the underground room, causing both Parker and Rose to bring their hands to their ears at the sudden noise. "Thank you. Might I have permission to approach." When the shrieking sounded again, Parker realized that the Nestene Consciousness was responding, that the sound was its voice. More than that, the Doctor seemed to understand the odd sound.

She nudged Rose in the shoulder when her eyes, having moved away from the Nestene Consciousness finally to take in the rest of the room, landed on the huddled shape of a person on the grey platform just below them. "Rose, look, it's-"

"Mickey!" The blonde all but screamed when she recognized the man Parker pointed to. "Oh, my God! Mickey! It's okay!" Then she was taking off down the next set of stairs, flying across the platform to her boyfriend's side.

Parker quickly followed, though she didn't miss the eyes rolling on the Doctor's face when he saw Rose rushing off. As she joined Rose and Mickey on the large platform, she couldn't help but wonder again just who the Doctor was. He'd said he was an alien, that much was obvious, but… Just how alien did he have to be not to care that a person they'd thought was dead before was actually alive? Parker didn't know Mickey Smith very well, but even she was relieved to find out that he wasn't dead after all.

"That thing down there, the liquid, Rose, it can talk!" Mickey latched on to Rose's hand as she squatted down next to him, her other one pressing to his cheek. His breathing came quick and heavy as he glanced down again at the Nestene Consciousness, then back at Rose. Finally, he seemed to notice Parker standing next to his girlfriend. "I know you. Riley, right? Riley… Something or other. Sorry."

"Sloane," she shrugged, not particularly offended. After all, they had only met a small handful of times. "But you can call me Parker. I don't go by Riley." Around them, off to the side of the platform, stood a number of mannequins, all dressed in different outfits. It took Parker a moment to remember what the Doctor had said about the Nestene Consciousness being in control of the plastic. Did that mean these things were alive?

Rose stood, dragging Mickey up by his arm as she did. "You're stinking, Mickey. Doctor, they kept him alive!"

The Doctor barely cast them a look as he passed by them, taking the final set of steps down. "Yeah, that was always a possibility. Keep him alive to maintain the copy." He finally came to stop at the edge of the platform right beneath where Rose and Parker stood with Mickey.

"You knew that and you never said?" Rose gaped at him.

"Can we keep the domestics outside, thank you?" He turned from them to fully address the Nestene Consciousness, and an authority like Parker had never heard before filled his voice. "Am I addressing the Consciousness?" The voice of the alien blob in the vat shrieked through the air once more in response. "Thank you. If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilization by means of warped, shunt technology." Although the technology he spoke of meant nothing to her, Parker was captivated by the sudden change in the Doctor. Somehow, he seemed almost _larger_ than he had just moments before. "So, may I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you shunt off?"

As the plastic blob bubbled in what Parker thought sounded like annoyance, she found herself suddenly less impressed with the Doctor's immense presence. "The world's at stake and he's making jokes?" The shake of Rose's head next to her told her that Rose was in just as much disbelief at his poor pun.

"Oh, don't give me that," the Doctor continued. He leaned slightly over the edge of the platform, narrowed eyes glaring down at his target. "It's an invasion, plain and simple. Don't talk about constitutional rights!" The Nestene Consciousness bubbled again, its shrieking taking on a much deeper tone than before. The alien's head rose up out of the blob once more and she could have sworn a face was there this time, the orange plastic sinking in some areas to give it the appearance of eyes and a mouth.

"I am _talking_!" The command in the Doctor's voice had Parker's knuckles tightening on the railing in front of her. Rose's hand gripped tighter around Mickey's. "This planet is just starting. These stupid little people have only just learnt how to walk, but they're capable of so much more. I'm asking you on their behalf. Please, just go."

"Doctor!" Rose called out, directing Parker's attention to a pair of mannequins sneaking up behind him. Before he could react, the plastic people had grabbed him by both arms. He tried to wrestle free, but couldn't seem to get out of their hold.

Parker felt her heart beginning to race inside of her chest. Her hand was in her messenger bag, fingers pulling the anti-plastic into her palm. This was her fault. She'd stolen the tube from the Doctor and had taken his only defense. Now he was in danger, and there was nothing he could do. There had to be something, _anything_ , she could do.

Rose called after her as Parker bolted down the stairs and across the platform, stopping only once she was near the Doctor. Without uttering a word, she yanked the tube of anti-plastic from her bag and held it in the air. When the Doctor caught sight of it in her hand, his eyes widened in shock. In almost an instant, the shock was replaced with anger, his eyebrows knitting together. Parker had no time to process his reaction as she pulled her arm back, preparing to throw the tube and hoping that she wouldn't miss the vat down below. But the moment she drew the tube back behind her head and took aim, she found herself stuck, unable to pull the trigger. If she threw it, she would be killing a creature that was only looking for a home.

Rose's shout reached her ears a moment too late. A plastic hand latched on to her wrist, wrenching her arm down behind her back and snatching the tube from her hand. Another set of hands immediately grabbed her other arm, pinning it back as well. All Parker could do was meet the Doctor's dark expression.

"I couldn't do it. I'm sorry, Doctor."

Down in the vat, the Nestene Consciousness raged as one of the mannequins held the vial of anti-plastic up for it to see. The Doctor raised his voice, a pleading tone taking over as he started to negotiate. "It was just insurance. She wasn't going to use it! She's human; she was scared. I'm not your enemy, I swear, I'm not… What do you mean?" A sudden clanking off to the side had them all directing their attention to a set of metal doors sliding open to reveal the Doctor's TARDIS. Parker felt as stunned as the Doctor looked, his mouth hanging open as he took in the sight of his blue box. They hadn't been underground for very long. How had the TARDIS gotten down here so fast? "Yes, that's my ship." The Nestene Consciousness roared again, its shrieking echoing off the walls loud enough that Parker cringed. "That's not true. I should know. I was there! I fought in the war. It wasn't my fault! I couldn't save your world; I couldn't save any of them."

The futility of the situation dawned on Parker with a rising sense of panic. The Doctor had been captured and, now, so had she. To make matters worse, they'd taken his ship, his TARDIS, and the anti-plastic, the only hope of taking down the alien threat, was in their hands. The sight of the TARDIS had seemed to enrage the Nestene Consciousness even more, and she had no idea what the Doctor was talking about that seemed to bring so much sadness into his voice.

"What's it doing?" Rose's voice shook. Mickey had both his arms wrapped around her waist, visibly trembling. They were her fault, too, Parker realized. By taking the anti-plastic, she'd put them in danger, as well.

"It's the TARDIS!" the Doctor explained, and Parker thought she could hear a trace of the panic she was feeling in his words. He tried again to buck against the mannequin behind him, but couldn't build enough leverage to get loose. "The Nestene has identified its superior technology. It's terrified! It's going to the final base and starting the invasion! Get out, Rose, just leg it!" He could offer the redhead in front of him nothing but a grim shake of his head. "Parker, can you get free?"

She twisted against the plastic hands holding her, but these mannequins were surprisingly strong for plastic people. It wasn't as if she didn't know how to fight. She'd been in plenty of fights and tight spots before, more than she cared to count, but this was different. Plastic people had no body parts she could hurt to force them to release their grasp. She brought her foot down on top of the fake one behind her, but nothing happened. "No good."

In her peripheral, Parker watched Rose pull an object from the pocket of her jacket. It was her cellphone, which she quickly dialed and held to her ear. The conversation was too quiet to hear, but Parker had a feeling that she was calling her mother. It's what she would have done, if she had any parents to call. Her own phone sat buried inside of her messenger bag somewhere, useless. What would Sophie and Aunt Claire think when she didn't come home tonight?

Would Sophie ever be able to forgive her?

Up on the ledge, Rose's eyes were wide and her fists were clenched, white knuckled, at her side. A look of determination, not fear, was set on her face, but she wasn't looking at Parker or the Doctor. Her gaze was focused somewhere else. Then, without a word of goodbye, Rose pulled out of Mickey's grasp and ran. Mickey called after her, the stunned expression on his face mirroring the shock Parker felt run through her. Rose had left them? She couldn't blame the girl, she supposed. The Doctor had told her to run, hadn't he?

In front of her, the Doctor stared off, probably watching as Rose escaped. Parker thrashed again, twisting in any direction she could, but failed to get free. She didn't care about the risk of getting hurt, or the fact that she would have to check herself for injuries later. The mannequin holding the anti-plastic was right there, just a few feet in front of her. If only she could get one hand free…

A smile broke out on the Doctor's face at the same time as something _clanged_ , the sound of metal on metal. Then a shout, Rose's shout, and he was telling Parker to duck. The moment she did, a heavy force thudded into the plastic person holding her, sending it off-kilter enough that Parker could finally twist her arms free. She cast her eyes up as she spun on her heel, finding Rose suspended in midair above the platform, swinging out across the room by a metal chain hanging from the ceiling.

As she passed by, Rose managed to send both of her feet into the side of the mannequin holding the Doctor. The Doctor bent forward and pulled the dummy's plastic arm forward, launching it over his at the same time as Parker slammed into hers. It fell forward, crashing into the one holding the tube of anti-plastic. Like a trail of dominoes, all three mannequins tipped over the edge of the platform and fell, spiraling downwards until they all landed on top of the Nestene Consciousness, writhing in fury inside of its vat. The glass vial shattered, the blue liquid spilling out onto the orange plastic alien.

With a triumphant shout, the chain Rose hung from swung back toward the platform. The Doctor stepped forward, catching the blonde in his arms before she could hit the staircase. Parker, a surge of adrenaline pumping through her system, rushed forward and, together, the three of them peeked out over the ledge at the Nestene Consciousness. The alien's screams split the air and it seemed to be glowing from within now, a bright light washing out the orange.

It was going to explode, Parker thought with a start. It was going to die, and she was the one who had killed it. The thought settled on her like a brick, weighing down the relief inside of her.

"Now we're in trouble," the Doctor said, his voice full of a victorious laughter that didn't sit well with Parker. She had killed the alien who had only wanted a home, and he was happy? She felt even worse when she realized that, deep down, part of her was happy, too.

The Doctor's hand wrapped around her, his other one taking Rose's, and he quickly led the girls back up the stairs to the TARDIS before the whole place could come down around them. With a key from inside his pocket, he unlocked the door and they all piled in. Parker immediately took up the same spot as before, turning away from the center console to stare at the odd hexagons in the walls. Her hands gripped the railing tightly, bracing herself for the movement she was sure to come. Mickey latched onto Rose's arm like a vice, refusing to move more than a foot from the door once he took in the size of the TARDIS. Rose held onto the railing near her with one hand, the other one trapped by the man beginning to hyperventilate. There was a small smile on Rose's face and a curious tilt to her head, all combined into a look of wonder. Parker felt that same sense of wonder, churning inside her in a fight with the dark pit growing at the bottom of her stomach.

The blue box around them began to make the wheezing sound from before, but this time Parker couldn't tell if the shaking she felt came from her or the ship. She almost died, and there was nothing she could do about it. She'd been helpless, a feeling she was extremely not fond of. Too many times before, she'd been helpless. When her mother left, when her father died, when her sister was diagnosed with cancer… Each and every time, she had been able to do nothing.

Rose had saved her. If Rose hadn't been there, she probably would have died. What scared her more than the idea of dying, though, was the knowledge of who she would have left behind. Sophie was waiting for her at home. If Parker never came home, would Sophie ever know what had happened to her? Her sister would be all alone. She had Aunt Claire, sure, and Aunt Claire might as well have been their mother. But she was Sophie's _sister_ , and Sophie was the other half to Parker's whole. Could Sophie withstand losing another family member, losing her? Could Aunt Claire? Their father had only died two years ago, after all, and they were still reeling from it, even now. Parker wasn't sure she would ever stop.

The moment the TARDIS landed, Mickey bolted like a flash of lightning out the door. He had no idea where they were, but that didn't stop him. Rose paused only to start dialing a number of her cellphone before she followed her boyfriend out into whatever part of the world they had landed in.

Seeing the phone in Rose's hand gave Parker a thought, and she pulled out her own cell phone from her messenger bag. Sophie answered on the third ring, a yawn muffling her greeting. "Were you sleeping? I'm sorry."

" _Nah, just dozing._ " But Parker knew her sister's voice and could tell that the slight slur to her words meant that she'd fallen asleep a long time ago. " _What's up, baby sister? You okay?_ "

"Yeah, yeah." She cleared her throat to cover the thickness in her voice and the tightness in her throat. "Just wanted to make sure everyone was okay. It was a weird night."

" _Aunt Claire's in bed, but we're good. I'm good. Maybe you can help me off the couch when you get home._ "

"Sure thing. I'll be home soon." She waited until Sophie hung up first before lowering the phone from her ear.

"Who was that?"

At the Doctor's question, Parker slowly turned around to face him, finding the alien's blue eyes trained on her. Had he been watching her the whole time? A debate briefly took place in her mind, asking herself whether or not she should tell him the truth. He would have no way of knowing if she did, and she would probably never see him again after tonight. But… She had stolen his anti-plastic and almost gotten them killed. He deserved the truth. "That was Sophie."

"And who is Sophie?"

There was no way to respond to that, not in a way that did justice to everything that Sophie was to her. All Parker could think to say was, "My sister, and my person." The Doctor merely raised his eyebrows at her, as if waiting for her to elaborate. Parker stood from the railing, tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans as she wandered over toward the console. "Sophie is more than a sister. She was a mom after our mom left us, and she was my rock when our father died."

His nostrils flared slightly as he released a small sigh, tipping his chin down slightly. "I'm sorry."

His words caught her by surprise; she didn't think he was the kind of person who apologized often. "Sophie is my everything. My best friend, my emergency contact, the person I go to when I need cheering up… The person I thought about first when I thought I was going to die back there."

A nod, full of understanding, and the icy blue of his eyes grew dark. "I used to have someone like that…" Used to? As in, he didn't have them anymore? Then the Doctor crossed his arms over his chest, met her eyes, and, like flipping a switch, changed topics. "You stole my anti-plastic."

Parker leaned her hip against the console, gazing down at all the buttons and gizmos she couldn't even begin to put names or functions to. "Yes, I did."

"Least you're honest." A deep chuckle rumbled through him, but his eyes were serious as he asked, "Why?"

"I know what it feels like to be homeless. Just like the Nestene Consciousness…" She lifted a hand and ran it over a bright blue knob in front of her, still refusing to meet his eyes. "Just like you."

He didn't say anything for what felt like a long time. His mouth opened and closed, a hand scratched at his head. Finally, he asked, "How did you know?"

A bitter laugh escaped her, flat and empty. "I know what it means to be lost better than most people. I know how it feels when the place you thought was home suddenly isn't, and how scary that can be. I'm very good at recognizing _lost_ , Doctor."

At last, her green eyes lifted to meet his. It had been clear to her earlier when he had mentioned the alien's home being lost in the war, in the way he had glanced down ever so slightly and his throat had subtly bobbed. She had seen the same look on Sophie's face more times than she could count over the years.

"This whole alien thing might be new to me, but I can imagine that losing one's planet is probably at least a little more painful than just losing a home. The Nestene Consciousness didn't deserve to die for that. Trying to destroy the human race, maybe. But trying to find a new home? No, it didn't deserve to die for that."

His eyes bore into her as he lowered his hands to the console. Although he hadn't moved from his spot, Parker was filled with a sense that he was towering over her. "I told you I would give it a chance. Twice I said it."

"I know," she said quickly. "I know that now, that you meant what you said. But what _you_ don't know is that I've had a lifetime of secrets and people telling me lies and half-truths. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe something, especially when it's coming from someone new." His intense staring was beginning to make her heart race. Did he ever blink? Somehow, though, she was unable to look away. "I didn't believe you, and that's not your fault. But that's who I am, and I won't apologize for that. All I can say is that I know better now."

Her piece said, Parker let the words hang in the air between them. He was probably pretty angry with her for almost getting them killed. She would be, if it was her in his shoes. When the silence dragged on, she nodded, accepting that her adventure had come to an end, and turned to leave.

She wasn't expecting his next question, and it stopped her in her tracks. "How did you wind up with the anti-plastic in the first place?"

He didn't sound angry, she realized with an odd feeling of relief. "I'm good at going unnoticed." She pivoted in place, standing halfway between the console and the door. "My sister and I used to play this game, you see, when one of us was mad at the other for something. It started after I lost her favorite sweater. In retaliation, she took something from my room and hid it, then waited until I noticed it was missing to tell me she had hidden it. Took me two weeks to find it. Ever since then, we've been stealing and hiding each other's stuff." She laughed softly at the memory, at the thought of the look on Sophie's face when she had declared that her sweater would be avenged. "You weren't paying attention, so I slipped it out of your pocket when you were talking to Rose."

"That's a bit impressive, taking it from me without my noticing, even if it does make you a thief." The Doctor patted the pockets of his jacket, as if checking that she hadn't taken anything else. Parker briefly wondered what else he could have in there; she hadn't felt anything besides the tube. Just when she thought he would be out of questions, he surprised her with another one. "He called you Riley back there." He gestured a hand at the entrance to the TARDIS, though she'd already known he meant Mickey.

With a sigh, Parker offered him a short explanation, hoping he wouldn't press the issue further. "My first name is Riley. Riley Parker Sloane. But I go by Parker."

"Why?"

"I have my reasons."

That seemed to satisfy his curiosity because he fell quiet again. His eyes didn't leave her, even as she made her way out of the TARDIS. She found herself standing in an alley. They were clearly somewhere in London, though she didn't automatically recognize the alley. A few feet from the blue box, Mickey sat huddled against the wall of a building, eyes so wide they might as well have bulged right out of his head. Rose stood over him, an unmistakable hint of annoyance in her voice as she tried to convince him to stand up.

Parker made her way over to stand next to the girl. She found herself filled with a new appreciation for Rose Tyler. Earlier, Rose had been nothing more than an acquaintance, a girl she knew through her aunt. Rose seemed nice enough, and it wasn't as if Parker had anything against her, but she hadn't thought much of the blonde. Now, though… She had a feeling she would be seeing a lot more of the girl she wanted to call a friend. "Your Mum okay?"

Rose nodded, frowning once at Mickey's huddled shape before turning a smile to Parker. "Yeah, don't think she'll be hitting the shops again anytime soon. Did you talk to your sister?"

"I did. They're both fine, home at the flat. They probably don't even know anything happened tonight."

The TARDIS door creaked as the Doctor stood in the entrance, leaning against the frame. "Nestene Consciousness? Easy," he said with a snap of his fingers.

Rose rolled her eyes, casting a smug glance between him and Parker. "You were useless in there, both of ya. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."

She wasn't wrong, Parker knew that. It seemed like the Doctor did, too, because he dipped his head, humbled. "Yes, I would. Thank you."

"Yes, Rose," Parker said, nudging her in the arm. "Thank you."

"You too, Parker. Thank you." She was thrown off-guard by the Doctor's gratitude. She hadn't done anything but almost get them killed. Why was he thanking her? "Even though it didn't quite work out the way we planned, you still tried to come to my rescue. For that, thank you." She didn't quite know what to say or how to respond. Thankfully, she didn't have to. "Right then! I'll be off. Unless, uh… I don't know. You could... come with me."

Come with him? Parker opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, but closed it again. He was looking at Rose, not at her. This invitation wasn't for her. Why would he want a thief like her to go anywhere with him? A sinking feeling filled her.

"This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe free of charge."

Anywhere? The chance to see different sights, different skies…

As if reading her mind, the Doctor turned his head, catching her eyes. "Just to be clear, this offer is for both of you. _He's_ not invited." He gestured to the cowering Mickey with a jut of his chin, something that she couldn't fault him for. "What do you think? You two could stay here and fill your lives with work and food and sleep, or you could go… anywhere."

Before Parker could get too excited about the offer, Rose was bringing her back down to Earth. From the way the blonde stuffed her hands into her pockets and then pulled them out again to pick at the hem of her sweat jacket, it was clear Rose was conflicted about something. "Is it always this dangerous?"

"Yeah," he confirmed with a nod and a smile, like that was a benefit.

Parker couldn't help but think back to the way she'd felt down in the sewer, with mannequins holding her arms behind her back while the Nestene Consciousness tried to take over the world. She had thought she was going to die, and had been filled with a fear that she would never make it home to Sophie. The same way their father had never made it home from the store, the same way their mother hadn't come back from her "trip."

" _Maybe you can help me off the couch when you get home."_

" _Sure thing. I'll be home soon."_

"I can't." The words were out of her mouth before she had time to process her decision or the overwhelming disappointment that came with it. "I have to take care of my sister, and our aunt is always so paranoid that something will happen to us. I… I can't."

Rose must have heard the sadness lacing her voice because she slipped her hand into Parker's, giving it a squeeze. From his spot crouching on the ground, Mickey threw his arms around Rose's leg. "Don't, Rose," he pleaded, his whole body shaking. "He's an alien! He's a thing!"

Rose slowly exhaled as she turned her head down to her boyfriend. When she looked back up at the Doctor, her grasp on Parker's hand tightened just a little, and Parker could see a tinge of red rimming her damp eyes. She knew what Rose's decision would be, and how much it would pain the girl to say it out loud. "Yeah, I can't…" Rose's voice cracked, making her sound so small, so unsure. "I've, um… I've gotta go and find my Mum and…" Her other hand patted Mickey's back. "Someone's gotta look after this stupid lump, so…"

"Okay," the Doctor said, much too quickly. The word felt like a slap to Parker. He asked them to come along, and was going to accept their refusal that easy? It was like he didn't care. Maybe he didn't. It wasn't as if Parker really knew him well enough to be able to tell. "See you around." He locked eyes with Rose for a moment, before slowly stepping back and letting the TARDIS door swing shut.

With the click of the blue door, it felt like a door had closed on Parker's future. All she had ever wanted was a chance to explore, just like her father had; a chance to see different skies. A chance to be someone new. And, just like that, she had turned it down. She was only mildly surprised when the TARDIS began to fade from sight. Somehow, she'd imagined it flying off into the sky like a bird, on wings she would never know.

It took Rose's eventual sigh and the squeeze of her hand to bring Parker back to reality and away from the future she'd just turned down. They had both been standing there, staring at the space where his ship used to be, for far too long. It was time to get back to their lives.

"Come on, let's go." Rose released Parker's hand, using both to start pulling Mickey to his feet. The poor boy had gone pale at the sight of the ship disappearing. Once he was on his feet, Rose turned a smile to the girl next to her, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "You can stay at our flat tonight if you want to, Parker."

Parker returned a similar smile, struggling to even manage a tiny one. Yesterday, or even this morning, staying at Rose's flat would have sounded ridiculous. She hadn't been a huge fan of Rose Tyler, she could admit that. But now she was getting to know the blonde better. Now, she owed her life to this girl. Now, Parker was almost positive that Rose would turn into someone she could call a friend, and she didn't have very many of those. As they started to walk back in the direction of the alley's exit, Parker shook her head. "Thanks, Rose, but I have to get home to Sophie."

"Right. How is she doing with her treatments?"

Parker opened her mouth to begin the lengthy explanation of Sophie's chemotherapy and all of the phases Sophie went through with each dosage, and she paused. At first, she thought she was making that wheezing sound. An odd feeling of hope and dread rose in her chest like an inflated balloon when she realized what the wheezing sound actually was.

Rose spun on her heel, almost knocking down a protesting Mickey in the process. Parker took longer to turn, almost afraid of what she knew she would see when she did. Her breath caught in her throat. If it really was him… She wouldn't be able to say no a second time.

The blue box was there, as solid as it was before. The door creaked open, and the alien man with his ice blue eyes popped his head out with a sly grin on his face. Then he said the most beautiful words that Parker had ever heard in her life.

"By the way… Did I mention it also travels in time?"

It took all of a millisecond for Parker to do the math and figure out what that meant. Traveling in time meant that she could be back before anyone could miss her. Sophie and Aunt Claire would never have to know she'd gone anywhere. They wouldn't have to worry.

Next to her, Rose kissed Mickey on the cheek. When Parker caught her eyes, twinkling with an excited light, she knew they were thinking exactly the same thing. Rose was smiling ear to ear.

A laugh bubbled up out of Parker as she said, "I'll race you."

She wasn't supposed to run but, she was finding out, there are just some things in life worth running towards.


	3. The End of the World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're all staying safe and healthy in these weird times! I appreciate any kudos or comments that you leave on this story. They really make my day to know that someone is enjoying my stories. If you want to stay updated on the progress of my different stories and check out status updates, make sure you check out the link to my Trello in my profile!

Chapter 3: The End of the World

* * *

_~"It was that initial leap of utter faith, that initial lurch into motion, that had my limbs locking up."~_

Sarah J. Maas, _A Court of Wings and Ruin_

* * *

Every nerve in Parker's body tingled with excitement as she raced through the TARDIS doors. Rose had beaten her there, but who cared? Adventure! She was going to have an adventure, like a hero in one of her novels. She imagined this was what Harry Potter had felt like when Hagrid told him that he was a wizard.

The Doctor was grinning from ear to ear, looking as excited as Parker felt. He was happy they had said yes, she realized. How long had he been alone? "Right then. Rose Tyler, Parker Sloane." He gave each of them a quick nod. "You tell me. Where do you want to go? Backward or forwards in time. What's it going to be?"

Parker was answering before Rose could even open her mouth. "Forward. The future." Without a word, the Doctor pressed a couple of buttons on the console. "Past seems boring." She didn't like to dwell on the past, not if she could avoid it.

With his hand hovering over a control that looked like a little brown wheel, he turned to Rose. "Parker chose the direction. How far would you like to go?"

"How far?" Rose chewed on her lip for a second before answering. "One hundred years."

Parker gaped at her. "That's it?"

"Now, hang on a moment." The Doctor quickly spun the wheel beneath his hand, then pumped some sort of lever next to him. The engine rumbled for a few seconds and fell silent. "There you go, step outside those doors and you'll find the twenty-second century."

"You're kidding," Rose said, eyes following the Doctor's pointed finger to the doors behind her.

The next question he posed sounded a bit smug. "That's a bit boring, though. Parker sounds like she wants to go further."

"Definitely."

Rose didn't hesitate before agreeing. "Fine by me!"

Once more, the Doctor spun the wheel, pumped the lever, and twisted some sort of crank. How was it possible they could go so far, so many years, in just a few short seconds? This time it was Parker who glanced at the door as the Doctor spoke, wondering just what could be out there. "Ten thousand years in the future. Step outside, it's the year 12,005. The New Roman Empire."

Parker briefly racked her brain for anything she knew about the old Roman Empire but came up blank. Were they the ones with the coliseums? She'd never cared much for history; that was Sophie's thing.

"You think you're so impressive," Rose teased.

"I _am_ so impressive!"

"You wish!"

Parker found herself laughing at the feigned offense on the Doctor's face, and asked, a daring tone to her voice, "How far can you take this thing?"

"It's not a _thing_. It's a _her_." Without any warning, the Doctor threw the TARDIS into action once more. This time, the effect was more intense, and Parker had to grab onto the console to keep from losing her balance. "You asked for it. I know exactly where to go."

The motion lasted longer than it had before. By the time it stopped and the ship went quiet, Parker's teeth had started to chatter together from the vibrations. "Where are we?" Rose asked instantly. The Doctor didn't say anything, only gestured a hand at the doors. That was all Rose needed, and she rushed out of the TARDIS into whatever world waited for her outside.

"After you then." Parker hadn't yet moved from where she stood next to the console. Her eyes were locked on the blue doors Rose had just passed through, but now she turned to find the Doctor's gaze, eyebrows raised, on her. "You alright?"

"Five by five," she said instinctively, a natural reaction to a question she heard far too often. "Sorry, that's a-"

"An old communications expression, and a phrase I haven't heard in quite some time." It was Parker's turn to raise her eyebrows now, surprised. She had picked up the saying from her father, but had found very few people in her life who were actually familiar with it. Usually, it was only people with military experience or _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ fans. Before she could explain what it meant, he added, "Means loud and clear, that you're fine. Are you, though?" A quick smile turned the corners of his lips up, but the intense, wondering stare in his eyes hadn't change, almost as if the smile was just a show.

"Yeah, I'm good." Was she? The moment she walked out those doors, she would officially be somewhere new. She was finally going to have an adventure, the kind she always dreamed about but was always prohibited from having. The last "adventure" Parker could remember having was falling out of a tree and cutting the side of her head open when she was a kid, maybe about seven years old. She'd gotten right back up, ready to climb, and then her mother had started screaming. Her mother had deemed even hide-and-seek too dangerous after that.

But her mother wasn't here now.

"Where are we anyway?" Her hands twisted the strap of her messenger bag and a bundle of nerves fluttered in her stomach, apprehensive, but she pushed them down. She was _ready_ for an adventure.

"Go find out for yourself."

Parker wasn't sure what she was expecting when she pushed open the TARDIS doors, but it certainly wasn't a small wooden room. The blue box had parked itself at the top of a set of stairs that was broken up into three levels. Rose stood at the bottom, next to a wall with a large, black rectangular panel in the center. As she descended the stairs to stand next to Rose, Parker wondered if this room was really made of wood at all. It looked like wood, filled with a grainy-looking texture and made up of slightly varying shades of brown in each piece of paneling, but it had a softer, more synthetic feel under her shoes. If this was the future, she hoped they had moved on, at least, from using real wood and chopping down trees. Or maybe they had better ways of getting wood, or better ways of growing trees at this point in the future. Why was she spending so much time thinking about trees?

There was a click and the black panel in front of them started to move, sliding down into the wall to reveal a window. The view outside of the window took Parker's breath away.

They were in space. Whatever they were on, whatever kind of room they were in, they were in _space_. Outer space. Right outside the window, just a little bit below them, was Earth. It surprised her how much the planet looked like the one she'd come to know after living on it for twenty years. It looked just like the pictures she had grown up seeing, a mixture of blues and greens with patches of white spread around. It reminded her of a painting, drops of color splattered against a rounded canvas. Over the crest of the planet, she could see a glowing orange orb, which she assumed was the sun, lighting up the dark navy hues of the universe around it.

With a soft gasp, Rose reached out and placed her hand in Parker's. Parker gave her a reassuring squeeze, unable to peel her eyes away from the view in front of her. She suddenly realized they were standing in a sort of observation room, like theater and the Earth was the show.

The Doctor's footsteps could be heard on the stairs and then his presence was there on her other side. "You lot spend all your time thinking about dying," he said, rather bluntly. Parker watched him in her peripheral vision, her eyes still glued to the planet below, as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids. But you never take the time to imagine the impossible. Maybe you survive. This is the year 5.5/apple/26. Five billion years into your future." Apple? What, had the universe run out of numbers after a few billion years? "This is the day… Hold on." He glanced down at his wrist, at a watch she hadn't noticed before.

Outside the window, the orange glow of the sun suddenly expanded, brightening into a white light so intense that both Parker and Rose raised their hands to shield their eyes. It lasted only a moment before dimming back down to a slightly darker shade of orange. The sun, a few sizes larger now, was an angry ball of fire.

"This is the day the sun expands." Parker wasn't surprised to hear him say that, not after what she had just witnessed. The sight before her created an odd feeling in her chest, a tightness she couldn't quite explain. "Welcome to the end of the world."

She let Rose's hand slip from hers as she stepped towards the window and pressed a hand to the glass. It was cool to the touch, even though the sun's flames licked at the Earth right outside.

A chime sounded throughout the room, drawing Parker's attention away from the view and back toward the other two. She wasn't quite sure what to call them. Friends? Acquaintances? Rose's brows were knitted together, her fingers toying with the zipper on her jacket. The Doctor glanced up at the ceiling as a voice began to speak over what seemed to be an intercom.

" _Shuttles five and six now docking. Guests are reminded that platform one forbids the use of weapons, teleportation, and religion. Earth Death is scheduled for 15:39, followed by drinks in the Manchester Suite._ "

Trying to ignore the way the term "Earth Death" twisted that tight feeling in her chest, Parker snorted. "Religion? People still have organized religion five billion years into the future?"

"You're not religious?" Rose asked, looking somewhat relieved at the change of topic.

Parker shrugged. "Religion and I don't quite get along since my Dad died."

"To answer your question, Parker, if there are people, you can bet there will be religion there, too. People, especially you humans, love a higher power." Abruptly, the Doctor turned and started up the stairs. "C'mon. There's more than just this one room to see."

Parker and Rose followed him out of the room through a round door that blended in with the rest of the wooden wall. The redhead cast a quick backward look at the TARDIS, wondering if the box would be safe while they were gone. After all, the last time the Doctor had left it unattended, it had been kidnapped by an alien made of plastic.

The hallway was narrow, only wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. Parker trailed behind the Doctor and Rose, listening to their conversation as she took in the space around her.

"So, when it says 'guests,'" Rose asked, "does that mean people?"

The walls and the floor were a very similar wooden-style material. Parker was growing more convinced that it wasn't real wood. When she reached her right hand out to trail along the wall next to her, it didn't feel grainy like wood usually did. It felt smooth, plasticky.

"Depends what you mean by 'people,'" the Doctor responded.

Black curtains made of a velvety material broke the wall on her left side into sections. Though a sense of uncertainty and the desire not to get left behind kept her from pulling the curtains back to peek, she wondered what was behind them.

"I mean people. What do you mean?"

They rounded a corner and Parker took note of a glowing blue panel in the wall that could have been a door. It didn't look like the door they had come through. Did that mean it was a different type of room, then? Maybe it wasn't a door at all.

"Aliens."

On her right, small black pedestals were placed every few feet with identical golden vases on top. They were gaudy things, reminded Parker of something she might have seen in a museum. She couldn't tell what type of people were depicted in the engravings. At the end of this hallway was another glowing panel, this time in neon green. Did it lead to another room, or were the glowing panels a decoration of some sort?

Almost immediately, the Doctor stopped and reached into his leather jacket. Retrieving a small tool from a pocket, he turned to a square set of buttons on the corner of the wall. The small tool in his hand was silver with a blue tip that lit up when he aimed it at the buttons. "What are they doing on board this spaceship?" Rose continued to ask as he fiddled the contraption. "What's it all for?"

Parker, having finished taking an inventory of her surroundings as her father had always taught her to, returned her focus to the conversation. So far, she was satisfied that this place, wherever they were, seemed relatively harmless. "Is this a spaceship?" Parker wondered out loud. "That was some kind of observation room, wasn't it? People, well, aliens, are coming to watch the Earth die." Saying those words left a sour taste in her mouth.

Even though he didn't physically touch the buttons with either his hands or the silver tool, the Doctor somehow managed to open the door in the wall next to him. "Sonic Screwdriver," he explained without really explaining anything at all, taking note of Parker's curious stare. "It's not really a spaceship, no. Parker's right. It's more like an observation deck for the great and the good."

The room he led them into was much larger than the one they'd landed in with a window that covered an entire wall and the ceiling. Rose spun in a circle slowly, taking in the view of the stars speckling the expanse of space above them. "Why? What's this all for?"

"Fun," was the Doctor's quick reply. "Mind you, when I said the great and the good, what I meant is the rich."

Parker, already having done a quick glance around the room, found herself drawn toward the window. "Shouldn't the Earth be on fire by now? If the Sun is expanding, how come it didn't wipe everything out by now? Now that I think of it, how are we even here?"

"The planet's now the property of the National Trust. They've been keeping it preserved. See down there?" He had joined her at the window, pointing a finger down at some small flecks of grey orbiting her planet. "Gravity satellites holding back the sun."

He was right. No matter how the angry giant stretched out its orange hands, fingertips of flames licking against an invisible barrier, the planet would not burn. Parker could almost hear the rage burning in its fiery tendrils. She could almost imagine the Earth's mocking laughter. Not yet. Soon the Earth would be nothing but ash, but not yet. Her mind began to drift down to the notebook buried inside of her messenger bag, her fingers itching to take pen to paper.

Rose peered down at the satellites, frowning. Her voice pulled Parker from thoughts of words and rhyme schemes. "Is this what aliens do for entertainment? Hang on, though. The planet looks the same as ever. I thought the continents shifted and things."

"They did. And the Trust shifted them back." That explained why the planet looked so similar to what Parker knew it as. "That's a classic Earth. But now the money's run out and nature takes over."

"You're not going to save it?" Parker asked, already sure of what his answer would be.

"Nope. Time's up." His voice was steady, his eyes clear. Her stomach was in knots at the idea of watching the Earth burn up like nothing more than paper to a match, but he might as well have been watching a commercial for all that he seemed bothered. Not even one of those heart-wrenching ASPCA commercials, either, more like one for car insurance.

Rose had to clear her throat before she asked, "What about the people?"

They both looked at the Doctor then, uncertain. "It's empty!" The tone of his voice was obvious, as if he couldn't believe she would ask him that. "They're all gone. No one's down there." Of course not, Parker thought, feeling silly. Of course, they wouldn't roast the planet with humans still alive down there. But what about all the dead ones?

"Just us then," Rose said quietly.

"Who the hell are you?" All three of them spun toward the new voice. Parker gasped as a man with blue skin barreled toward them. Blue? He had black markings above and below his eyes, and there was some sort of blue jewel set into the center of his forehead. His lips were also black, though Parker couldn't tell if they were naturally that color or if it was makeup. Did aliens wear makeup? No, probably not. As he grew closer, the Doctor greeting him, she caught sight of more black markings covering the back of his neck, mostly covered by the brown, almost bronze-colored, suit he was wearing that matched the hat covering his head. "How did you get in? This is a maximum hospitality zone. The guests have disembarked! They're on their way any second now!" Parker felt frozen to her spot, overwhelmed with a sudden feeling that they were in trouble. On the other side of the Doctor, Rose took a noticeable step back, putting him between her and the alien.

The Doctor cast a quick look on either side of him, catching Parker's wary eyes, before turning a smile to the strange man in front of him. "That's me, I'm a guest! I've even got an invitation." Parker was expecting him to pull out the thing he had called a Sonic Screwdriver when she saw him reach into his leather jacket again, but this time he fished out a small leather wallet. He quickly flashed it at the man, holding it up for only a few seconds before closing the wallet again. "There, you see? It's fine. The Doctor, plus two. I'm the Doctor. This is Rose Tyler and Parker Sloane. They're my plus two. That alright?"

The blue man stared at Rose for a long moment, then at Parker. Finally, he gave the Doctor a curt nod. "Obviously. Apologies, et cetera. I'm the Steward. If you're on-board, we'd better start. Please enjoy." He gave a slight bow, before walking away from them in the direction of the door.

"How did you do that?" Parker asked once the Steward was out of earshot. At least, she assumed he was, unless he had super-human, or super-alien, hearing. "I totally thought he was going to kick us out into space or something."

"You're a bit morbid, aren't you? He's an alien, not a monster." The Doctor turned to face them, but Parker was filled with confusion when he flipped open the wallet for them to see. "The paper's slightly psychic. Shows them whatever I want them to see. Saves a lot of time."

"Is it supposed to be blurry?"

"What?" the Doctor stared at her, his blue eyes a little too intense for Parker's liking. "What do you mean 'blurry'?"

Parker looked at Rose helplessly, feeling like she had said something wrong. "I'll take that as a no, it's not supposed to be blurry. What do you see, Rose?"

Rose looked at the so-called psychic paper in the Doctor's hands once more, chewing on her lip. "It's not blurry to me," she finally admitted. "It clearly says 'The Doctor, plus two guests.'"

Was Parker crazy then? Great, that's just what she needed, on top of everything else wrong with her. When she looked at the paper, she could tell that something was written on it. But it was like a piece of paper after water had been spilled on it, or like rubbing a hand over ink that hadn't completely dried. The words were there, but they were blurred and messy, unreadable.

She said as much, earning a furrowed brow from the Doctor. "Strange… How do you feel about magic?"

That was an odd question. Still, she answered truthfully, not entirely sure what he was getting at. "As in, magic tricks?" She couldn't help the way her nose scrunched up at the thought. "It's overrated. Magic's not real, so magicians and magic tricks are just that: tricks. People trying to fool you."

"Interesting." He didn't say anything else, just tucked the little black wallet back inside his jacket. Parker was left running a hand through her copper hair, wondering what the hell had just happened. She caught Rose's eye, but the blonde just shrugged, as confused as she was. How come Rose had been able to see it, but she couldn't?

"He's got a paper that can show people whatever he wants them to see," Rose shook her head in disbelief. "And that guy's blue." Parker smiled in spite of herself.

When the Steward started to speak again from a pedestal near the front of the room, the Doctor turned in that direction once more. The slight crease in his brow was the only sign of confusion, or possibly curiosity, on his face. She couldn't read him. It bothered her. She could usually read someone as well as she could read a room. But there was something about him, something about his eyes in particular, that was impossible to put her finger on.

"We have in attendance the Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Parker Sloane." As if nothing had happened just a moment ago, a grin was back on the Doctor's face as the Steward spoke into his microphone. "Thank you! All staff to their positions."

As soon as the Steward clapped his hands, dozens of small people, all with the same blue skin as him, marched into the room from small doors hidden in the walls. Each one wore a black uniform and a matching black helmet on their head. As quickly as they entered, they exited through the main door in front and split off in different directions. Workers, Parker assumed, based on the Steward's words, off to do their jobs. They were so small, though. Were they the same race-species?-as the blue Steward? How did all of this work?

"And now, might I introduce the next honoured guest," the Steward continued to speak once the little workers were out of the room. "Representing the Forest of Cheem, we have Trees. There will be an exchange of gifts representing peace. Please keep the room circulating, thank you."

Trees? Parker couldn't quite wrap her head around what she had just heard. How could trees be guests? She got her answer a moment later when the doors in the front of the room opened again, revealing three figures. She wasn't sure she would have called them "trees," but they were certainly tree-like. Dark green in color, with pointed pieces of what looked like bark on the tops of their heads instead of hair. The one in the center must have been important. She, at least Parker assumed it was a she based on its body shape and outfit, wore a dress made of red and gold, while the other two wore what looked like armor.

Parker barely had time to process the tree-people before the Steward was announcing someone else. "Next, from the solicitors of Jolco and Jolco, the Moxx of Balhoon." This time, a small but rather fat alien with blue skin and a huge head entered, rolling in on some sort of bronze chair. If he was blue, did that mean he was related to the Steward? Was that racist? She was being racist, wasn't she? Alienist?

"And next, from the Financial Family Seven, we have the Adherents of the Repeated Meme." She looked over at the Doctor as the next aliens were introduced. He seemed to be having the time of his life, a huge grin on his face. Rose, on the other hand, looked a little pale. She was taking everything in with bewildered eyes. Parker imagined that her eyes were just as wide. She tried to give Rose a reassuring nod, let the blonde know she wasn't alone, but Rose was too busy looking at everything else to notice.

One after another, the Steward introduced so many different races or species of aliens that Parker lost count. She still wasn't sure how to refer to them. The Doctor was an alien, too. Would he be offended if she asked? No, it was bad enough she hadn't been completely honest with him. She didn't want to offend him on top of that. But with each one that she tried to commit to memory, Parker felt a knot growing in her chest and beginning to expand. Her hands were beginning to shake and she busied them with the strap of her bag.

"These are all different types of aliens?" Rose asked, her voice strained.

"Yep," the Doctor responded as if it was no big deal. And it probably wasn't, to an alien like him, anyway. "All from different planets or solar systems. These are some of the most well-known races, and the best, or the richest, of their race."

So it was race, not species, then, Parker noted.

Just when she thought the parade of aliens was over with, she saw the tree-people approaching them. Up close, she could see that they did very much resemble a tree, from the leafy texture of their skin to the way their fingers looked like vines. The female one in the center had more brown in her coloring than the other two. The one standing to her right held a tray full of saplings in little pots. Parker couldn't stop staring at the small twigs that seemed to be growing from the bark on each of their heads.

"A gift of peace," the female one said, though she seemed to speak only to the Doctor. She took a pot off of the tray and placed it in his hands. "I am Jabe, and I bring you a cutting of my Grandfather."

"Thank you!" the Doctor said, his voice full of gratitude. Whatever this exchange was, he seemed to be getting a significance out of it that Parker wasn't seeing, and she wondered if, somehow, the tiny tree in the pot was also a living person like them. "Right, gifts… Parker, Rose?" He turned to Parker, handing her the small tree. She could only shake her head at him. What kind of gift could she possibly have? It wasn't like she'd left her flat last night with the knowledge that she would be meeting human trees. Rose shrugged when he gave her the same look. "Useless, you both are."

"Excuse you-"

"Not now," the Doctor shut Parker's retort down before she could fully form it. She could only stand there, her mouth hanging slightly open, as he turned back to Jabe and started patting down the pockets of his leather jacket. Then, as if a lightbulb had gone off, he smiled and leaned forward. "I give you, in return, air from my lungs." Taking a deep breath in, he released it slowly, blowing it towards Jabe.

In response, the tree-woman closed her eyes, taking it in. "How… intimate," she said with a small smirk when he was finished.

"There's more where that came from." He was flirting. Parker frowned, irritation making the knot in her chest grow. He'd just told her to shut up, basically, and now he was flirting with a woman made out of a tree. That was definitely racist, Parker decided with a sigh.

The sapling in her unsteady hands was starting to quiver so she passed it off to Rose when Jabe and her other trees walked away. "You breathed on her," Rose noted, taking the sapling and giving it a look over. "Is this tree alive? It's not, like, going to speak to me, is it?"

"Don't be daft," the Doctor said. "It's only a cutting. Your hair wouldn't speak if you cut that off, would it?"

"Like we're supposed to know that," Parker grumbled. There was a pressure forming in her temples and she knew a headache was building, though she couldn't feel it. Ignoring her irritation, she tried to focus on the matter at hand. "You knew we were coming here, but you didn't think to come prepared?"

"How was I supposed to know we'd need gifts?" His tone was defensive, arms crossing over his chest.

"Well, you look like an idiot breathing on people. Aliens." Even Rose's mouth hung slightly open at that, but Parker ignored both of them. Instead, she pulled open the flap to her messenger bag and shoved her hand inside of it. "Maybe I do have something. Hang on."

"What are you-"

"I said _hang on_." It was her turn to interrupt him now, and the way his eyes darkened told her that he wasn't used to it. And he didn't like it. Still, he waited as her fingers groped at the various objects she had in her bag. Headphones? The one pair she had wouldn't be enough, and she liked those headphones. Pen? Same issue. She only had one pen. First aid kit? No, something told her that she should probably hold on to that. Breath mints? Maybe. Could aliens eat breath mints? Then her fingers found the hard corner of her notebook and an idea sparked to life. "Here we go." The notebook came out of the bag and, with a second thought, she also withdrew the small tin of breath mints. She automatically handed the breath mints to the Doctor, who looked at them in sheer confusion. "Just in case you decide to breathe on anyone else." Rose raised a hand to her mouth, attempting to cover up a snort.

He certainly did not look amused as he turned the tin over in his hand. He didn't eat any, but he did shove it into his pocket. Would she ever get that back? Probably not. "Very funny. What's with the book?"

"This is my notebook," Parker said very matter-of-factly. He waved a hand impatiently, gesturing for her to continue. She flipped through the pages of the notebook quickly, looking for a blank page. Most of the pages were full of writing and scribbles, plot bunnies for stories and poems, short ones only a few lines long and lengthy ones that spanned more than one page. She wouldn't use those, they were personal. They were hers. Even Sophie didn't see them, nevermind a bunch of strange aliens. When she finally navigated to a section of blank pages toward the back, she ripped one out and stuffed it into the Doctor's other hand. "Your gift. A genuine Earth piece of paper."

His intense gaze stared at the piece of slightly wrinkled paper in his hand for so long that she thought for sure he was going to call her an idiot and give it back. But a moment later he grinned and nodded, blue eyes gleaming. "Fantastic, Parker. Good thinking. I knew I was right to bring you two along."

Parker smiled back, feeling the pressure in her head lessening some. Next to her, Rose's look was focused on the Doctor, but her smile didn't quite reach her eyes.

The Doctor suddenly turned back around as they were approached by another alien. This time it was the little blue one on the chair. Which one was he, or was he a she? The Meme one, maybe. She vaguely remembered the blue one as the something-or-other of the Repeated Meme.

"The Moxx of Balhoon," the Doctor said, proving her wrong. If he wasn't the Meme alien, which one was?

The Moxx of Balhoon greeted the Doctor, but Parker was distracted by the arrival of a new alien through the main doors. A large face in a glass tank that the Steward called the Face of Boe. The face looked almost human, but she had a feeling that it only looked that way. She turned her attention back just in time to see the blue alien spit, landing a gob of saliva right beneath Rose's eye. The Doctor couldn't hide an amused chuckle as he thanked the Moxx of Balhoon.

Rose raised a hand to her cheek and Parker, seeing a faint tremor in her fingers, stepped over. "Let me," she said, pulling the sleeve of her sweater over her hand and raising it. "Are you okay?"

The blonde was quiet for a moment as Parker wiped the last of the saliva off of her cheek. "Yeah, just great. Love having spit in my eye." She sighed, running the hand that wasn't holding the sapling through her hair. "It's just…" Her gaze scanned the room, and Parker had a feeling she knew what Rose was thinking.

"Me, too."

Brown eyes met olive ones and Rose asked, somewhat hopefully, "Really?"

"Ah, the Adherents of the Repeated Meme!"

Parker nodded at Rose before ripping out another piece of paper from the notebook in her hands and placing it in the Doctor's outstretched hand. So these were the Meme aliens she had been thinking of before, the ones wearing the large black cloaks. The knot in her chest started to mix with the butterflies in her stomach as she realized she would never be able to remember all of these aliens. Even worse, she got a bad feeling from this one and she couldn't tell why. Normally, she would have trusted her instincts, but did her instincts apply in this situation? It was probably just the black cloak.

"A gift of peace in all good faith," the voice that came from the black hood in front was slightly robotic. In its large claw was a silver orb that the Doctor took and handed back to Rose. The group of these Repeated Memes glided away, almost like they were floating. How could a meme be an alien, anyway?

"And last but not least, our very special guest." The Steward was talking again, causing all of the chatter in the room to die down. "Ladies and gentlemen, and Trees and multiforms, consider the Earth below. In memory of this dying world, we call forth the last human."

The two girls shared a look in confusion. The last human? Hadn't the Doctor already said before that everyone had left Earth, implying that there were more humans out there?

The sliding doors in the front of the room opened up and the thing that was wheeled in was anything _but_ human as far as Parker was concerned. Her hand flew to her mouth as she took in the _thing_ that was surely going to give her nightmares for the rest of her life.

"The Lady Cassandra O'Brien Dot Delta Seventeen."

This was supposed to be a person? No, there was absolutely no way. It had eyes and a mouth, and it had skin. But that was it. It didn't even have a body. This "last human" was just a large flap of skin stretched out and flattened into a metal frame. It, or rather she, might as well have been a skin-colored canvas, tied to multiple points on the frame. The layer of skin was so thin and translucent that hundreds, possibly thousands, of tiny red veins could be seen through it, coursing blood across in every direction. It was pale, abnormally smooth, and _wrong_.

"Truly, I am the last human." At some point, this thin, pink piece of leather had begun to talk, and Rose had left Parker's side to get a closer look. At least Rose looked just as disgusted as Parker felt. "My father was from Texas. My mother was from the Arctic Desert. They were born on the Earth and were the last to be buried in the soil." The shock on Rose's face had slowly shifted into pure horror as she took in the nonexistent backside.

Parker, on the other hand, was frozen to her spot as Cassandra continued to spout off her story. She felt nauseous as she watched two men in white on either side of the flap of skin spray it with some kind of liquid. Moisturized, the skin was less leathery, but it also succeeded in making it somehow more translucent. Parker could see the shapes of the aliens standing behind the metal frame, dark shadows covered by the spidery veins of blood covering the canvas. And the eyes, so small and beady… Was she watching her? Cassandra's eyes were definitely on her.

Cassandra continued to talk, saying something about an ostrich egg. The whole room laughed with her, even the Doctor, but Parker couldn't focus on anything but the sudden rapid beating of her heart. They were talking to a flap of skin. This wasn't a person. A person had a body, had a heart, had a brain. Limbs, a freaking pulse. _Something_. This was not a person. This was not a human. She might as well have been an alien. And no one questioned it because they were all aliens, too. This wasn't strange, because everything was strange all of the time. When there were walking and talking trees and little blue people who spit and tall blue people with jewels in their foreheads, what was normal?

The Earth was normal. It looked just like her Earth. She tried to take comfort in that fact and look out the window behind her. Anything to avoid having to look at the talking flap of skin. But the tightness in her chest only constricted further, choking her heart, when she looked out at the blue planet below. At the sun that was so desperately trying to burn through it.

She all but jumped out of her skin when music started to play. She recognized the song, but couldn't put her finger on the title or the artist. " _Sometimes I feel I've got to… Run away. I've got to… Get away._ " What song was this? Think, Parker. Did it even matter?

"Where's Rose going?"

Parker whirled at the Doctor's voice, turning just in time to follow his gaze over to where Rose was rushing out of the room. An exit. "I don't know," she managed to breathe out, almost unable to recognize her own voice.

Over the microphone, the Steward announced, "Earth Death in thirty minutes."

Parker couldn't breathe. There were too many people. No, not people. Aliens. Everywhere she looked, there were aliens. Blue ones, ones wearing black cloaks, ones that looked like birds, trees. A stupid flap of skin claiming to be a human. Too much, it was too much. "Earth Death." Could they stop saying that?

"She's going to miss all the good parts." The Doctor was still watching the door, waiting to see if Rose would come back in. "Earth Death-"

"Maybe that's the point!" Parker hissed, feeling as if something had snapped in her. "Can you stop saying that?"

He turned to her, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "Saying what? What's gotten into you?" His blue eyes narrowed at her, looking her up and down. "Humans. You lot can be so touchy."

"Touchy? Excuse me?" Her hands were shaking now as she shoved her notebook back into her bag. Her eyes scanned the room, avoiding focusing on any of the aliens for too long as she searched for the easiest route to the exit. Out. She had to get out. "Maybe I wouldn't be so _touchy_ if I was a freaking flap of skin! Now I'm going to go find Rose. Have fun with all of your… Whatever." She gestured widely at the room around them before storming past the Doctor, doing her best to keep her eyes on the exit as she made her way out of the room.


End file.
